Bohannan v. Arizona Smith, 204

• Decision Date: 01 October 1967
• Docket Number: No. 204,204
• Parties: Robert C. BOHANNAN, Jr. v. ARIZONA ex rel. Darrell F. SMITH, Attorney General
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

389 U.S. 1

88 S.Ct. 55

19 L.Ed.2d 1

Robert C. BOHANNAN, Jr.

v ARIZONA ex rel. Darrell F. SMITH, Attorney General.

No. 204.

Supreme Court of the United States

October Term, 1967.

October 9, 1967

John P. Frank, for appellant.

Darrell F. Smith, Atty. Gen. of Arizona, and Gary K. Nelson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The motion to dispense with printing the motion to dismiss is granted. The motion to dismiss is also granted and the appeal is dismissed for want of a properly presented federal question.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK joins, dissenting.

Appellee applied in the court below for a writ of quo warranto. The petition asked that appellant be ousted 'from the office he presently holds as Member of the State Board of Public Welfare of the State of Arizona, and [that] his office [be declared] vacant so that a successor may be qualified as provided by law.' Appellee referred in its petition and brief to Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 38-447, which provides that any official who violates the statutory prohibition against having an interest in contracts made by him in his official capacity 'shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years, and is forever disqualified from holding any office in this state.' Appellee, however, asked the court below only to require appellant 'to show cause why his position as a Member of the State Board of Public Welfare should not be declared vacant and why he should not be found to unlawfully hold said office, so that a successor may be qualified as provided by law.'

Appellant filed a motion to quash the application on the ground that under the statutory scheme removal from office could be imposed only upon one who had been found guilty in a criminal proceeding of violating the statutory provisions. That motion was denied. Appellant then answered the application, acknowledging that certain mortgage transactions between the Arizona Retirement Board and the Associated Mortgage and Investment Company took place while he was a member of the former and president and director of the latter. Oral argument was denied, the case being decided on the briefs.

Up to that point, therefore, the matter was presented as a question of state law—it was contended that the state statutes did not permit removal from office prior to a criminal conviction. The court, however, not only ruled that appellant should be excluded from his office as a Member of the State Board of Public Welfare but also 'forever disqualified from holding any public office in the State of Arizona.' To reach this conclu- sion, the court construed the Arizona statutes to require a criminal conviction if a fine or imprisonment were to be imposed on the public official, but only a 'judicial determination of the fact upon which the disqualification rests,' if disqualification were the sanction to be imposed. The quo warranto proceeding before the court was held to offer a sufficient 'judicial...