State ex rel. Atty. Gen. v. Savage

• Decision Date: 01 February 1890
• Citation: 89 Ala. 1,7 So. 183
• Parties: STATE EX REL. ATTORNEY GENERAL v. SAVAGE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

7 So. 183

89 Ala. 1

STATE EX REL. ATTORNEY GENERAL v. SAVAGE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 1, 1890

Trial of the impeachment of R. R. Savage, probate judge of Cherokee county. For hearing on motion to quash, see ante, 7 So. 7.

W L. Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.

Tompkins & Troy and J. A. Walden, for respondent.

STONE C.J.

Article 7, § 1, of the constitution, (section 4818, Code 1886,) must be interpreted in the light of the object the law-making power had in view in their adoption and enactment. They pertain to official qualification and fitness, and require that the incumbents of the enumerated offices shall be free from the vices therein interdicted. In reference to habitual drunkenness, the gravamen of the present information, the purpose was to secure a calm, wise, and faithful administration of the law, uninfluenced by the endangering effects of habitual intoxication. It is implied and assumed that drunkenness so clouds the intellect and inflames the passions as that official trust cannot be safely confided to those with whom excessive indulgence in intoxicating drinks has become a habit.

"Drunkenness" is that effect produced on the mind, passions, or body, by intoxicants taken into the system, which so far changes the normal condition as to materially disturb and impair the capacity for healthy, rational action or conduct; which causes abnormal results, or such as would not ensue in the absence of the intoxicants,-the changed effect produced by the immoderate or excessive use of intoxicants, as contrasted with normal status and conduct.

"Habit" is customary state or disposition acquired by frequent repetition; aptitude by doing frequently the same thing; usage; established manner. When a person has repeatedly acted in a particular way at intervals, whether regular or irregular, for such length of time as that we can predicate with reasonable assurance that he will continue so to act, we may affirm that this is his habit.

The testimony, taken in its entirety, proves that the accused drank to excess-to drunkenness-six or eight times a year, and that this, with intervals of from one to two months, has, with the exception of about a year immediately succeeding his last election, in 1886, been kept up for much more than three years before these proceedings were instituted; that his sprees or fits of intoxication lasted from one to two or more days, and once for two or more weeks, and that during his spells or sprees he frequently staggered in walking, sometimes fell to the ground, had to be led or assisted home, and was abnormally loud, if not boisterous, in his conversation. Even after the present proceedings were set on foot, he took one or more sprees. Under the definitions given above, we hold that drunkenness had become a habit with the respondent, and that at and before the commencement of this proceeding he was and is guilty of habitual drunkenness. We therefore find the charge and specification of habitual drunkenness made against respondent to be true, and that he is guilty as charged in the information. Blaney v. Blaney, 126 Mass. 205.

It is therefore the order and judgment of the court that the said R. R. Savage, judge of probate of Cherokee county, be, and he is hereby, removed from the said office of judge or probate, and that he is disqualified from holding office under the authority of this state for the term for which he was elected.

SOMERVILLE J.

The information addressed by the grand jury of Cherokee county to this court, and filed by the attorney general, which is analogous to the ordinary articles of impeachment, charges the defendant, R. R. Savage, as probate judge of said county, with habitual drunkenness, as a ground of impeachment, which is one of the several causes specified in the constitution and statute which may be made the basis of such a proceeding.

Certain state officers, including judges of probate, are subject to impeachment and removal from office on the following grounds Willful neglect of duty, corruption in office, habitual drunkenness,...