Kennard v. Louisiana Ex Rel Morgan

Citation92 U.S. 480,23 L.Ed. 478
PartiesKENNARD v. LOUISIANA EX REL. MORGAN
Decision Date01 October 1875
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana.

On the 3d of December, 1872, John H. Kennard was, during a recess of the senate of Louisiana, appointed by the governor associate justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, in place of W. W. Howe, resigned.

On the 4th of January, 1873, the acting governor commissioned P. H. Morgan associate justice of the Supreme Court, in place of W. W. Howe, resigned. Kennard claimed to hold until the expiration of the next regular session of the legislature.

To settle the disputed title to the office, suit was brought. The courts of Louisiana, proceeding under an act of the legislature of Jan. 15, 1873, determined in favor of Morgan.

The case was then brought here upon the ground that the State of Louisiana acting under this law, through her judiciary, had deprived Kennard of his office without due process of law, in violation of that provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which prohibits any State from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, 'without due process of law.' The provisions of the law are set forth in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Thomas J. Semmes, Mr. Robert Mott, and Mr. N. P. Chipman, for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. Thomas J. Durant, contra.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.

The sole question presented for our consideration in this case, as stated by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, is, whether the State of Louisiana, acting under the statute of Jan. 15, 1873, through her judiciary, has deprived Kennard of his office without due process of law. It is substantially admitted by counsel in the argument that such is not the case, if it has been done 'in the due course of legal proceedings, according to those rules and forms which have been established for the protection of private rights.' We accept this as a sufficient definition of the term 'due process of law,' for the purposes of the present case. The question before us is, not whether the courts below, having jurisdiction of the case and the parties, have followed the law, but whether the law, if followed, would have furnished Kennard the protection guaranteed by the Constitution. Irregularities and mere errors in the proceedings can only be corrected in the State courts. Our authority does not extend beyond an examination of the power of the courts below to proceed at all.

This makes it necessary for us to examine the law under which the proceedings were had, and determine its effect.

It was entitled 'An Act to regulate proceedings in contestations between persons claiming a judicial office.' Sect. 1 provided, that 'in any case in which a person may have been appointed to the office of judge of any court in this State, and shall have been confirmed by the senate and commissioned thereto, . . . such commission shall be prima facie proof of the right of such person to immediately hold and exercise such office.'

It will thus be seen that the act relates specially to the judges of the courts of the State, and to the internal regulations of a State in respect to its own officers.

The second section then provides, 'that if any person, being an incumbent of such office, shall refuse to vacate the same, and turn the same over to the person so commissioned, such person so commissioned shall have the right to proceed by rule before the court of competent jurisdiction, to have himself declared to be entitled to such office, and to be inducted therein. Such rule shall be taken contradictorily with such incumbent, and shall be made returnable within twenty-four hours, and shall be tried immediately without jury, and by...

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92 cases
  • Hendryx v. Perkins
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
    • February 13, 1902
    ... ... v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565; Kennard v ... Louisiana, 92 U.S. 480, 23 L.Ed. 478; Hagar v ... Reclamation Dist., 111 U.S. 701, 4 ... ...
  • Ekern v. McGovern
    • United States
    • Wisconsin Supreme Court
    • June 2, 1913
    ...legislative methods, judicial power in the technical sense--each in its proper sphere, is due process of law. In Kennard v. Louisiana etc., 92 U. S. 480, 481, 23 L. Ed. 478, in dealing with a fixed term of office and power of removal for cause, on appeal from the state court presenting ques......
  • Hartigan v. Bd. Op Regents Of West Va. Univ.
    • United States
    • West Virginia Supreme Court
    • March 9, 1901
    ...the question of notice or hearing, because the statute provided for notice. It has nothing to do with this case. Kennard v. Louisiana, 92 U. S. 480, 23 L. Ed. 478, simply held that a state statute fixing the mode of contest between contestants for a judicial office was not repugnant to the ......
  • Attorney Gen. v. Pelletier
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
    • February 21, 1922
    ...must generally be conclusive in this court.’ The case at bar upon this point is covered completely by the authority of Kennard v. Louisiana, 92 U. S. 480, 23 L. Ed. 478;Foster v. Kansas, 112 U. S. 201, 5 Sup. Ct. 8, 28 L. Ed. 629;Boyd v. Nebraska, 143 U. S. 135, 12 Sup. Ct. 375, 36 L. Ed. 1......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

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