Laughlin, In re, A-4295

• Decision Date: 17 March 1954
• Docket Number: No. A-4295,A-4295
• Citation: 153 Tex. 183,265 S.W.2d 805
• Parties: In re LAUGHLIN, District Judge.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 805

265 S.W.2d 805

153 Tex. 183

In re LAUGHLIN, District Judge.

No. A-4295.

Supreme Court of Texas.

March 17, 1954.

Hyde, Barber & Shireman, by Wm. H. Shireman, Corpus Christi, Elton M. Hyder, Jr., Fort Worth, for relators.

Small, Small & Craig, C. C. Small and C. C. Small, Jr., Austin, for respondent.

CALVERT, Justice.

This proceeding for the removal of C. Woodrow Laughlin, Judge of the District Court in and for the 79th Judicial District, had its origin in Article XV, § 6 of the Constitution of Texas, Vernon's Ann.St., which reads as follows:

'Sec. 6. Any judge of the District Courts of the State who is incompetent to discharge the duties of his office, or who shall be guilty of partiality, or oppression, or other official misconduct, or whose habits and conduct are such as to render him unfit to hold such office, or who shall negligently fail to perform his duties as judge; or who shall fail to execute in a reasonable measure the business in his courts may be removed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction to hear and determine the causes aforesaid when presented in writing upon the oaths taken before some judge of a court of record of not less than ten lawyers, practicing in the courts held by such judge, and licensed to practice in the Supreme Court; said presentment to be founded either upon the knowledge of the persons making it or upon the written oaths as to the facts of creditable witnesses. The Supreme Court may issue all needful process and prescribe all needful rules to give effect to this section. Causes of this kind shall have precedence and be tried as soon as practicable.'

As originally filed the petition for removal contained twelve Causes, each presenting separate incidents said to constitute grounds for removal.

On exceptions filed by respondent, this Court dismissed Causes Nos. Six, Nine, Ten and Eleven and, proceeding under the delegated power to prescribe an needful rules to give effect to the foregoing section of the Constitution, appointed Honorable D. B. Wood, Judge of the 26th Judicial District as Master, with extensive powers, to hear testimony on the remaining Causes and to report his findings to this Court. In due course and after much labor the Master filed his report with this Court in which findings of fact were made, said by the Master to be upon clear and convincing evidence, sustaining Causes One, Two, Three, Seven and Eight. As to Causes Four, Five and Twelve, he found the evidence insufficient to show grounds for removal.

As originally filed, and subsequently amended, the Causes were presented upon the oaths of eleven lawyers, practicing in the court held by respondent and otherwise satisfying the constitutional requirements, and were founded upon the knowledge of such lawyers as to the facts charged in Causes Three, Four, Five, Eight and Twelve and upon the written oaths of single witnesses as to each of Causes One, Two and Seven.

Respondent challenges now, as he did originally, the sufficiency of the oaths of the witnesses to Causes One, Two and Seven to invoke the jurisdiction of the Court to hear and determine those Causes. In response to this challenge, relators have filed a motion for leave to file an amendment to their petition for removal and in connection with this motion have tendered for filing an amended presentment conforming the oaths to Causes One, Two and Seven with those made to Causes Three, Four, Five, Eight and Twelve.

We have concluded that the amendment may and should be allowed.

While a proceeding of this character involves the imposition of a penalty in that it may result in depriving one of a public office and the employments thereof, it is not, strictly speaking, a criminal proceeding, McDaniel v. State, Tex.Civ.App., 9 S.W.2d 478, writ refused; Glavecke v. State, 44 Tex. 137; and the rules of law preventing amendment of criminal indictments do not apply. Rather, it is supplementary of the constitutional and statutory provisions for the removal of other public officers in which it is specifically provided and held that the trial and proceedings connected therewith shall be conducted as far as is possible in accordance with the rules and practice in other civil cases. Article 5981, Revised Civil Statutes, 1925; Poe v. State, 72 Tex. 625, 10 S.W. 737. In the absence of a showing of prejudice, our rules governing procedure in civil actions are extremely liberal in allowing amendment to cure defects, faults or omissions in a pleading, either of form or substance. Rule 66, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Under this Rule it has been held that amendment should be allowed to supply a necessary verification of a pleading. Ramsey v. Cook, Tex.Civ.App., 231 S.W.2d 734, no writ history.

Causes One, Two and Seven contained detailed allegations of facts pertinent thereto. The Court directed the Master to receive and the parties to present evidence thereon. In obedience to that order the parties presented their evidence and there is no showing that respondent was deprived of a full and fair hearing on any of the charges, or that in the presentation of his defense to the causes he would suffer any prejudice by virtue of the amendment. When a full hearing is granted, the fact that it is based upon an unsworn pleading is not a denial of due process. Ex parte Winfree, Tex.Sup., 263 S.W.2d 154. Relators' motion for leave to file their amended presentment of causes is granted. As amended, the nature of the oaths to the enumerated causes is undoubtedly sufficient to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court to act on respondent's removal.

Respondent has presented a motion to dismiss the proceeding in its entirety on the ground that the nature of the proceeding as prescribed by Article XV, § 6 of the Constitution of Texas constitutes a denial of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. His argument in support of this contention suggests that due process is denied because our constitutional provision permits private attorneys, who may be disgruntled practitioners before the judge, to impinge upon or interfere with the independence of the judiciary on vague and general charges of partiality, unfitness, and negligence. It is said that due process can only be guaranteed through proceedings initiated on behalf of the public by public agencies. We do not agree.

The Constitution of Texas provides three methods for the removal of judges of the District Courts. One is by impeachment by the House of Representatives, the articles of impeachment to be tried by the Senate, as provided in Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Article XV. A second is by the Governor on address of two-thirds of each House of the Legislature as provided in Section 8 of Article XV. The other is as provided in Section 6 of Article XV, above quoted. In each the judge is guaranteed a full and fair trial on the charges preferred against him, whether the charges be by way of articles of impeachment preferred by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate, or by way of legislative address to the Governor, or by way of a presentment of causes filed by lawyers and tried by the Supreme Court. Ferguson v. Maddox, 114 Tex. 85, 263 S.W. 888; Gordon v. State, 43 Tex. 330, 339.

Neither proceeding may be resorted to lightly nor may its consequences be lightly regarded. Frivolous charges, or charges involving no more than mistakes of judgment honestly arrived at or the mere erroneous exercise of discretionary power entrusted by law to a district judge, will not be entertained by this Court as grounds for removal. Neither may removal be predicated upon acts antedating election, not in themselves disqualifying under the Constitution and laws of this State, when such acts were a matter of public record or otherwise known to the electors and were sanctioned and approved or forgiven by them at the election. This holding is in harmony with the public policy declared by the Legislature with respect to other public officials. Article 5986, R.C.S. 1925, Vernon's Ann.Civ.St. It was in keeping with the foregoing policy that Causes Six, Nine, Ten and Eleven were dismissed without putting respondent to the expense and concern of a hearing thereon. Nor may a removal proceeding against a district judge be resorted to as a means of satisfying personal animosities growing out of disappointing litigation results; nor to equate political factions or settle political differences which properly find their solution at the ballot box. While we should not close our eyes to the political turmoil in the area of the State where respondent presides, a condition of which we may take judicial notice, Seay v. Latham, 143 Tex. 1, 182 S.W.2d 251, 155 A.L.R. 180, no more should we lend ourselves to the idea in exercising our judicial function of passing on the merits of a case before us, that the court should become a party to a movement to dispel that condition.

On the other hand, the people residing in a judicial district are rightfully entitled to be relieved of the impositions of a judge who, though chosen by them, proves by his official conduct to be partial to some and oppressive to others, or unfit or incompetent to hold his office, or neglectful of its duties. Since they cannot relieve themselves before the expiration of the incumbent's full term of office, and since a session of the Legislature from whence must come removal by impeachment or by address may be neither in progress nor imminent when the need for relief arises, we think it not unreasonable and not a denial of due process that the coordinate and cumulative power to grant relief is delegated to the supreme judicial agency of the state.

When lawyers appear before this Court they appear as officers of the Court, and it must be presumed that relators filed this proceeding with a full understanding and consciousness of the legal, moral and ethical obligations inherent in their...