Johnson v. State

• Decision Date: 22 March 1897
• Parties: JOHNSON v. STATE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

39 A. 646

59 N.J.L. 535

JOHNSON

v. STATE.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

March 22, 1897.

Dissenting opinion. For majority opinion, see 37 Atl. 949.

DIXON, J. In January, 1896, the plaintiff in error was tried and convicted of murder of the first degree, before a tribunal styled in the record the court of oyer and terminer of the county of Somerset, held by a justice of the supreme court, and two others styled judges of the court of common pleas of said county. At that time the act of June 13, 1895 (P. L. 1895, p. 807), which purports to abolish the courts of oyer and terminer and of common pleas after the first Monday in December, 1895, stood upon the statute book unrepealed. For the reason set forth by Mr. Justice Magie in his dissenting opinion in Schalk v. Wrightson, 58 N. J. Law, 50, 32 Atl. 820, I think that act was a valid exercise of the constitutional power of the legislature to abolish the inferior courts of the state, and therefore that the tribunal which tried and convicted the plaintiff had no lawful existence, and consequently no jurisdiction. That the act of April 9, 1896 (P. L. 1896, p 236), could not validate such proceedings is sufficiently maintained by the opinion of Chief Justice Beasley in Maxwell v. Goetschius, 40 N. J. Law, 383. The judgment should be reversed.