Buckingham v. State
| Citation | 35 A.2d 903,42 Del. 405 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Delaware |
| Decision Date | 20 January 1944 |
| Parties | WARREN W. BUCKINGHAM v. THE STATE OF DELAWARE, upon the relation of Clair John Killoran, Attorney-General |
Supreme Court, November Session, 1943.
Writ of error to Superior Court for New Castle County.
This was an action of quo warranto involving the following facts stated in their chronological order:
On April 1, 1941, the following Act of the General Assembly was approved, being Chapter 220, Vol. 43, Laws of Delaware, page 975:
On June 8, 1942, Warren W. Buckingham, the defendant below, plaintiff in error, was duly commissioned a Justice of the Peace of the State of Delaware, and was still acting as such on March 1 1943.
On March 1, 1943, an annual municipal election was held in and for the Town of Middletown, Delaware, pursuant to the provisions of the Town Charter, Chapter 128, Vol. 33, Laws of Delaware, page 326; that at said election the said Warren W Buckingham was a candidate for the office of Mayor of the Mayor and Council of Middletown; that Warren W. Buckingham received the highest number of votes cast for said office at such election, as certified by the election officers, and took the oath of office as prescribed by the Charter.
On March 5, 1943, the Council of the Mayor and Council of Middletown declared the office of Mayor to be vacant, and appointed another to fill the vacancy. This action was taken pursuant to Sec. 6 of the Charter (incorrectly referred to as Sec. 7 in the Record), which provides that if any person elected to an office in the Town shall be ineligible to the same, such office shall become vacant and Council shall appoint a person to supply such vacancy.
Thereafter, Buckingham brought, in the Superior Court in and for New Castle County, an action of mandamus, and on July 1, 1943, a peremptory Writ of Mandamus was issued, pursuant to which Buckingham was restored to the office of Mayor.
On July 13, 1943, the Attorney General filed an information in the nature of Quo Warranto which is the basis of the present proceeding. After plea filed by the defendant, and, after argument, the Court, without written opinion, and on November 24, 1943, entered judgment of ouster, and from this judgment the present Writ of Error followed.
The two material assignments of error are:
1. That the Court erred in holding that Chapter 220, Volume 43, Laws of Delaware [], was applicable to the office of Mayor of the Mayor and Council of Middletown, a municipal corporation of the State of Delaware.
2. That the Court erred in holding that said statute was not unconstitutional.
The judgment of the Court is reversed.
Harry K. Hoch and P. Warren Green for plaintiff in error.
William H. Foulk and Howard E. Lynch, Jr., for defendant in error.
This case in the final analysis depends entirely upon the applicability and validity of the Act of Assembly quoted in the statement of facts. It is conceded that Buckingham, at the time of his election as Mayor of Middletown, had every qualification as required by the Charter of the Town, and that his election was valid, unless, under the quoted Act of Assembly, he was ineligible to be a candidate for the office of Mayor of Middletown by reason of the fact that he was, at the time, a Justice of the Peace.
It has been suggested that the constitutionality of the cited statute need not be here determined, but that the conclusion of the Court could be based upon the inapplicability of the Act to a municipal office, such as Mayor of Middletown. It is argued that the words "elective office," as used in the Act, mean a State or County office, as contrasted with an officer of a municipal or other corporation. For this view may be cited State v. Churchman, 3 Penn. (19 Del.) 361, 51 A. 49, and other Delaware cases. We recognize the general rule that Courts are hesitant to undertake the consideration of matters involving the constitutionality of a law if the pending litigation may be determined upon another basis. We adhere to such rule, but recognize that to it some exceptions must exist, and that when the questions presented involve matters of great public interest and universality of application, the Court should not so circumscribe its conclusions as to unduly defeat the remedy of the parties or the object of the litigation. We note both in the title of the Act and in its purview that the Act is made expressly applicable to at least some municipal offices insofar as ineligibility as a candidate is concerned. The ineligibility as a candidate and the qualifications of an office to which such candidate aspires are, as we shall later discuss, quite closely connected. The constitutionality of the cited Act was directly attacked in the Court below. The conclusion of the Court below, so far as we are informed, was based solely on the constitutionality of the Act. Such question of constitutionality has been elaborately briefed and argued in this Court, and to such question we must now address ourselves.
It will be noted that the statute makes it "unlawful" for designated members of the judiciary to become a candidate for elective office. No penalty being provided, we do not think the Act was intended as a criminal offense, but that the word "unlawful" was used in the sense of making the candidacy of such judicial officers as contrary to law and as affecting the eligibility of such candidate to fill such office, if elected.
We shall not pause to discuss, at this point and at length, the traditional separation of powers in a constitutional government, such as ours, into the three coordinate branches of government, nor the inability of one branch to encroach upon the constitutional rights of the others. The fact of a residuum of power resting in the legislative branch means that residuum not granted by the Constitution to the Executive or Judicial branches, for the Constitution is equally binding on all, and the residuum of power only exists when the constitutional rights, powers and liabilities of the various branches of government are taken into account.
A statute such as now under consideration must be viewed in two aspects. When it affirmatively states that no constitutional judicial officer, during his term nor within six months after its termination, may be a candidate for an elective office, it states an affirmative disqualification of the judicial officer. It just as effectively, however, adds to the elective office to which the judicial officer has aspired a further and additional qualification to those specified in the Constitution, such additional qualification being "that he may not be, at the time, a judicial officer nor have been such within the past six months." To make this clear let us present a concrete example. Suppose a judicial officer aspires or is persuaded to seek the elective office of Governor. The quoted statute declares affirmatively the disqualification of the judicial officer. The Constitution of Delaware, Art. III, Sec. 6, prescribes the requisite qualifications for one to hold the office of Governor, and these qualifications refer both to age and residence. If the quoted statute be valid there must implicitly be added to the qualifications of age and residence an additional one, viz., "that he may not be a judicial officer at the time of his candidacy for the office of Governor, nor have been such within six months prior to such candidacy."
With these thoughts in mind we may pause to see some elective offices coming within the terms of the Act, and consider its validity as effecting new qualifications governing the eligibility to hold such offices. These offices may be grouped as follows:
a. Federal offices such as United States Senators and Representatives in Congress.
b. Constitutional State offices.
c. Constitutional County offices.
d. Municipal offices created by special Act of Assembly.
e. Statutory offices created by general Act of Assembly.
a. The authorities are uniform that where the qualifications for Federal offices are set out in the Federal offices for which no constitutional qualifications are prescribed, would seem to be the extent to which the Act under discussion could apply. As to the latter we express no opinion. The statutory elective offices as now existent and as drawn to our attention are so greatly limited in numbers as not to justify the thought that the Act was intended to apply to them alone or would have been adopted with that end alone in view.
We now come to the other aspect of the Act, viz., the affirmative act of disqualifying substantially every judicial officer of the State from being a candidate for an elective office during his term of office, or until six months after his term of office shall have terminated. The Constitution by Art. IV, Sec. 1, declares:
"The judicial power of this State shall be vested in a Supreme Court, a Superior Court, a Court of Chancery, an Orphans' Court, a Court of Oyer and Terminer, a Court of General Sessions, a Registers' Court, Justices of...
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