Pittman v. Forbes

• Decision Date: 23 October 1939
• Docket Number: 33950
• Citation: 191 So. 490,186 Miss. 783
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: PITTMAN v. FORBES

191 So. 490

186 Miss. 783

PITTMAN v. FORBES

No. 33950

Supreme Court of Mississippi, Division A

October 23, 1939

APPEAL from special court, of Marion county HON. W. J. PACK, Judge.

Proceeding by Enoch Pittman against John E. Forbes for a judicial review of an order of the Democratic Executive Committee declaring Forbes the party nominee for office of supervisor of District 4 of Marion County. From an adverse judgment, Enoch Pittman appeals. Affirmed.

Affirmed.

G. Wood Magee and Shirley Magee, both of Monticello, for appellant.

The petition in this cause, as we think, charges gross violations of the Corrupt Practices Act, Chapter 19, Laws of Mississippi, 1935, Extraordinary Session. If the allegations of the petition are true, it goes without saying that the election was void and should be held void by the court. However, the only question involved in this appeal is whether or not that part of Section 15, Chapter 19, Laws of Mississippi, 1935, Extraordinary Session, relative to the certificate required was complied with.

This provision of the statute is as follows: "But such petition for a judicial review shall not be filed unless it bear the certificate of two practicing attorneys that they and each of them have made an independent investigation into the matters of fact and of law upon which the protest and petition are based, and that after such investigation they verily believe that said protest and petition should be sustained and that the relief therein prayed for should be granted."

The special trial judge in passing upon the demurrer to the petition held that the case of Pittman v. State, 155 Miss. 745, was applicable to the issue raised by the demurrer and sustained the demurrer and dismissed the petition.

In our judgment there is a wide difference in a certificate required to be signed by attorneys to a bill of exceptions, as in the Pittman case, supra, and the certificate required by and under the provisions of the Corrupt Practices Act.

The certificate required by the Corrupt Practices Act is made and required to be filed before the trial is commenced and contemporaneously with the filing of the petition before any of the incidents of the trial occur. It is merely a certificate by two attorneys that they have made an independent investigation, etc. If the ruling of the Special Judge is correct, then the attorneys who made the investigation independently and signed the certificate could not afterwards appear as counsel for the contestant. Lawyers as a rule, do not investigate a case unless they are paid to do so, and if the word "independent" is given the meaning the trial judge gave it, then the contestant would have to employ at least two lawyers to make "independent investigations, " and then employ another to try his contest, --and we seriously doubt, if the trial judge's holding is correct, that an investigation by two employed attorneys would be held to be "independent, " even though they went no further with the matter.

In this case, we submit that the court should and will look to the purpose which the Legislature intended to accomplish by the passage of the Corrupt Practices Act and will not permit an unreasonable construction of the statute to defeat its purpose. An unreasonable construction should never be placed upon a statute, nor should a useless provision in a statute ever be allowed to destroy its wholesomeness. The provision in the statute requiring a certificate of any kind, or by any one, is wholly useless, because the trial tribunal is not required to be governed by the certificate, nor, so far as we can see, even influenced by it in the least. The trial tribunal is merely to hear, examine into, and pass upon the facts presented and say whether or not the Corrupt Practices Act has been violated.

In fact, the certificate required by the statute is not worth the paper it is written on, unless it can be said that the trial tribunal needs the moral support of at least two practicing attorneys to brace him in the discharge of his duties while out of his judicial district. But, of course this is no good reason for the provision in the statute, and we venture to assert that no one can really assign a good reason for the provision.

Rawls &amp Hathorn, of Columbia, for appellee.

The only question for decision in this appeal is whether or not the certificate required by Section 15 of the Corrupt Practices Act may be made by the two attorneys for the contestant and who initiated the original contest for him before the Executive Committee, and which attorneys appeared for him in the hearing before the Committee and conducted the trial of the contest before said Committee and who represented him in the hearing in the lower court and who now represent him in this court.

It was the unanimous opinion of the trial judge and the Election Commissioners of the county, amongst whom is one of the leading...