Court Opinion

ID: 9810442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:50:16.720392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:55.638298
License: Public Domain

Furches, J.,
concurring: I concur in the well considered opinion of the Court delivered by Justice Clark. But as the case involves an important constitutional question, I deem it not improper that I should briefly give expression to some of the reasons I have for concurring in this judgment.
The Superior Courts are creatures of the Constitution. They cannot be abolished by the Legislature. They are permanent institutions. The Constitution provides and requires the State to be divided into Judicial Districts. These districts may be increased, but when this is done it adds another or other districts by reducing the territory of one or more of the districts as they then existed. The new district then becomes one of the judicial districts provided for by the Constitution. This new district, when created, becomes a Superior Court district— a part of the system of the Superior Courts of the State. It is then entitled to the same rights and subject to the same laws as the other judicial districts.
While the Constitution authorizes the Legislature to increase the number of Superior Court districts, it does not authorize it to change the mode of electing its judge. This must be by the people, and all the judges must be elected under the same system — all must be elected *660alike. If a part are elected by the whole State (and this is the law now), all must be elected by the whole State. It cannot be that all the judges but one shall be elected by the whole State, and that one elected by a single district. If this were so, the result would be that the electors of this one district would have two votes each. They would have the same voice in electing the other twelve judges that the voters of the other eleven had, and then they would have the election of one judge that the others had no right to vote for. There must be uniformity. As the law is now, the whole people of the State must elect. If it be changed to the district system, then the whole people of the district must elect.
The Constitution provides that “every judge of the Superior Court shall reside in the district for which he is elected.” This is a clear-cut inference that there is to be but one Superior Court judge for any one district. And if Judge Ewart is a Superior Court judge, as he resides in the district of another judge, this is a violation of the Constitution.
We all understand what is meant by the term “Superior Court Judge,” because it indicates his duties and powers. But if a judge be clothed with all the powers and duties of the Superior Court judge, he is a Superior Court judge, although he may be called by some other' name. Such legislation is an excrescence upon the Superior Court system of the State.
If more courts are needed, it is easy to provide them, in a constitutional way, by creating more judicial districts, and more terms in counties that need them.