State v. Police Com'Rs
| Decision Date | 01 April 1904 |
| Citation | 88 S.W. 27,184 Mo. 109 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. GOODNOW v. POLICE COM'RS. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
For majority opinion, see 71 S. W. 215.
For the following reasons I am unable to concur in opinion of the court in this case:
The act of 1874 (Laws 1874, p. 327) looks to the appointment and maintenance of a permanent police force for Kansas City. It prescribes the numerical standard of the force, or, rather, a rule by which the numerical strength shall be measured. That numerical standard once established, it is the duty of the board of police commissioners to keep the force up to it until the same is reduced according to law. The power to increase the number is given to the common council on the recommendation of the board of police commissioners, and in the same sentence the power is given the commissioners to reduce the force. The fixing of the numerical standard in the first place, its increase and its reduction, are all treated by the Legislature in one breath, as it were, and are all intended to apply to the one object — that is, the general standard of the force — and they have no relation to the appointment or the discharging of individuals. In the exercise of the authority conferred in that sentence, the governmental agency to whom it is intrusted would say: The police force for Kansas City shall consist of so many officers and so many men; or it would say the force shall be increased to so many men, or that it be reduced to such a number. In the exercise of the power conferred in that sentence the government agency appoints no one; neither does it discharge any one. The power there conferred is rather in the nature of legislative than executive function. It prescribes the standard of strength, but does not appoint to the office.
The language of the act is: So far the act confers only power to appoint, equip, etc., the duty there prescribed is purely of administrative character, and it does not leave it to the commissioners to say of what number the police force shall consist, but the number or standard of measure is elsewhere in the act fixed, and until it is altered the police commissioners cannot lawfully refuse to appoint...
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