Supreme Court of Arkansas

“ If it be true that a judge is entitled to exercise a jurisdiction with impunity, because he himself has decided that he possessed it, then indeed to my mind all distinction of jurisdiction is broken down, and the only rule in future must be the will of the judge, or that he has jurisdiction because he has exercised it. ”

“ To confer a right necessarily implies a right to use the means necessary to protect it; and when it is said that the citizen shall not be deprived of these rights but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land, the privilege to appear and defend such rights and for that purpose to have notice of the time when, the place where and the tribunal before which such trial is to be had necessarily follows ”

“ It must always be remembered that the state's constitution is neither an enabling act nor a grant of enumerated powers, and the legislature may rightfully exercise the power of the people, subject only to restrictions and limitations fixed by the constitutions of the United States and this state. Under our system of government the legislature represents the people and is the reservoir of all power not relinquished to the federal government or prohibited by the state constitution. ”

“ Where the contract is between the individual and the State, no action will lie against the State, and any action founded upon it against defendants who are officers of the State, the object of which is to enforce its specific performance by compelling those things to be done by the defendant which, when done, would constitute a performance by the State, or to forbid the doing of those things which, if done, would be merely breaches of the contract by the State, is in substance a suit against the State itself, and equally within the prohibition of the Constitution. ”

“ In other words, under our system all our superior courts have a general jurisdiction as to persons and a limited jurisdiction as to subject matter, and therefore there should be a more liberal intendment as to the jurisdiction of the person than of the subject matter. And this would seem to be the true foundation of the rule that, although a presumption will not be indulged as to the subject matter, yet presumptions as to jurisdiction over the person will be indulged. ”

“ Because there was then no human right for such a law to act upon, so far at least as temporal affairs were concerned; no tribunal to enforce its mandates; no individual to claim its protection. In a word, there was no place for its operation among men in their temporal relations towards each other. If then it was a law of nature at all, it was a dormant rule, which, in that condition of man's estate, could never have been derived by the light of reason from "its essential agreeableness to the constitution of human nature." ”

“ It is the role of the judiciary to apply those sentences within the legislatively determined range when a defendant is convicted, so long as the terms of the sentencing statute are not constitutionally defective. On rare occasions the courts are faced with a statutory void and they must step in and act when there is an absence of legislative action or, as in this case, when the void is created by a constitutionally infirm action. ”

“ Unless we could suppose that the citizen is bound to take notice of the proceedings of courts, as they are of public laws, this amounts to saying that their rights may be passed upon and their property taken by judicial determination imheard and undefended by them, and if this rule is to prevail in civil proceedings, where the rights of property is involved (saving perhaps some additional constitutional protection) it is difficult to see why life, liberty and reputation may not also be sacrificed under it ”

“ It is almost impossible in some matters to foresee and provide for every imaginable and exceptional case and the Legislature ought not to be required to do so at the risk of having its legislation declared void, although appropriate and proper upon the general subject upon which such legislation is to act, so long as there is no substantial and fair ground to say that the statute makes an unreasonable and unfounded general classification and thereby denies to any person the equal protection of the laws. ”

“ The contention made respecting § 6525 is that it was not adopted, because not in force in Arkansas at the close of the session of the general assembly of 1883. The claim that it was not then in force is based upon a decision of the supreme court of Arkansas in 1885, holding that it was impliedly repealed by the inclusion in the civil practice act of 1868, which was a later enactment, of certain provisions regulating appeals from the probate to the circuit court, and prescribing the effect to be given to the latter's decision upon such an appeal. ”

“ An act should be struck down only when there is a clear incompatibility between the act and the constitution. Id. We acknowledge that it is the duty of the courts to sustain a statute unless it appears to be clearly outside the scope of reasonable and legitimate regulation. City of Little Rock v. Smith, 204 Ark. 692, 163 S.W.2d 705 (1942) .
[16, 17] As an initial matter, appellant contends that a facial challenge cannot be maintained because a plaintiff may only challenge a law as facially invalid if he shows that application of the law will restrict his First Amendment rights. We disagree. ”

“ Such a defendant, sued as a wrongdoer, who seeks to substitute the State in his place, or to justify by authority of the State, or to defend on the ground that the State has adopted his act and exonerated him, can not rest on the bare assertion of his defense, but is bound to establish it; and, as the State is a political corporate body, which can act only through agents and command only by laws, in order to complete his defense, he must produce a valid law of the State which constitutes his commission as its agent and warrant for his act. ”

“ State, 80 Ark. 579.
In considering this question, the distinction must not be overlooked between the violation of a preliminary injunction preserving the status quo of the subject-matter of the litigation during the pendency thereof, and the final decrees of courts requiring the parties to do or not to do the things enjoined upon them by such decrees. In the latter cases, if the decree was rendered without jurisdiction, it can be disobeyed with impunity, for no one owes obedience to a void decree, as it is without any force whatever. "A void judgment is, in legal effect, no judgment. ”

“ One of the strongest arguments used in support of the jurisdiction of the court is, that as it must necessarily in a greater or less degree be the judge of its own jurisdiction, the fact that it has assumed and exercised such jurisdiction presupposes that it has passed its judgment in favor thereof, and that to hold a judge accountable for an error of judgment could not be sanctioned, as it would strike at the independence of the tribunal itself. ”

“ The appellants (defendants in that case) contended that, in passing the resolution setting aside the contract and making the order directing the superintendent to withdraw the convicts, the board was acting for and representing the State, and that the State was therefore a necessary party. In response to that contention we said: "The power and authority to make a contract is one thing, but the power to abrogate it is quite another thing, and the latter power is, in this government, possessed by neither the State nor any of her citizens. ”

“ The board was not representing the State at all when they passed the resolution annulling the contract and ordering the convicts taken away from the Brick Company.
"No principle is more firmly established than that when an officer exceeds his authority his acts are individual acts only, and do not bind the State. The State is liable only to the extent of the power actually given its officers, and not to the extent of their apparent authority." ”

“ That is to say, that the powers invested in the superior courts were general powers and those vested in the inferior courts limited powers. And the consequence would be, as to the former, that there could be no defect of power so long as judicial action was confined to a subject within the jurisdiction of one of these courts, and consequently the functionary could never be a trespasser, however contrary to law might be the proceedings on such a subject matter. ”

“ The rights granted by our constitution are guaranteed to all citizens equally. Article 2, Section 3, provides: "The equality of all persons before the law is recognized, and shall ever remain inviolate; nor shall any citizen ever be deprived of any right, privilege or immunity, nor exempted from any burden or duty, on account of race, color or previous condition." Ark. Const. art. 2, § 3. "The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens privileges or immunities which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens." ”

“ It is the bounden duty of courts not to defeat the will of the people, expressed through their representatives in the legislative halls, unless it is clearly manifest that some vested right or provision of the Constitution has been invaded. ”

“ As the decree of the Supreme Court of Arkansas, in the present case, does not contravene this decision, but refuses aid to any of the parties against each other, except as to the improvements erected by each respectively, and as to these, saves the rights of the United States, we do not perceive any error in said decree on any Federal question. ”

“ Decisions which become rules of property should never be overruled, whether they are right or wrong. But where, as in this instance, no rule of property is disturbed, and the dignity and sovereignty of the State is involved, we conceive it to be our duty to correct the mistake of the court as speedily as possible by overruling a former decision which we have become thoroughly satisfied is erroneous and contrary to the recognized rules established by the other courts of the country. ”

“ If the validity of every law is to depend upon the mere fact that the judiciary, if they had been legislating, would not have so arranged the law, we think that the Constitutional Convention reposed more confidence in the judicial department than sound discretion would warrant. ”

“ To reiterate what we said in Lake View II, this is a unique case with a unique set of circumstances, where there is no question but that the state and local school districts derived an economic benefit. Ordinarily, there could be no fee award assessed against the State due to the doctrine of sovereign immunity under our state constitution. It is only because the State waived sovereign immunity in this case that the issue of an attorneys' award became viable. ”

“ This court held that there was no justiciable case or controversy absent any allegation that attempts had been made to obtain voters' signatures as required by the recall statute or any specific allegation that the petitioner wished to recall a city director. We said:
The Declaratory Judgment Statute is applicable only where there is a present actual controversy, and all interested persons are made parties, and only where justiciable issues are presented. It does not undertake to decide the legal effect of laws upon a state of facts which is future, contingent or uncertain. ”

“ Thus, it is seen that the act of March 1, 1895, created a court of appeals in the Indian territory, with such superintending control over the courts in that territory as the supreme court of Arkansas possessed over the courts of that state by the laws thereof ”

“ We might then have had to consider whether the determination of the state court did not, in effect, attack collaterally the judgment of the District Court and deny its authority, even though that judgment rested on a different view of the state Constitution than that adopted by the Supreme Court of Arkansas. See United States ex rel. ”

“ We are fully aware that there are highly respectable authorities, besides some of the previous decisions of this court, which are directly against the conclusion to which we have arrived on the main question; but, with due deference, we think all such have lost sight of the controling distinction between the judicial powers of superior and inferior courts of special and limited jurisdiction and the consequent paramount doctrine that the judgment of a superior court can never be a nullity to be entirely disregarded. ”

“ It is not our role to discover the actual basis for the legislation. Arkansas Hosp. Ass'n, supra; Streight v. Ragland, 280 Ark. 206, 655 S.W.2d 459 (1983) . We merely consider whether there is any rational basis which demonstrates the possibility of a deliberate nexus with state objectives so that the legislation is not the product of arbitrary and capricious government purposes. If we determine that any rational basis exists, the statute will withstand constitutional challenge. See Arkansas Hosp. ”

“ By the Court: SCOTT, J.—Notice before judicial sentence is not a law of nature; or, at least, not such in a sense that would make a human law nonobligatory that would circumscribe the sphere of its operation. Nor has the common law consecrated it as such by a strict conformity to its mandates. It follows that there may be an obligatory law paramount to the law of notice before judicial sentence.
By the common law the judgment of a superior court is not void, but only voidable by plea on error. ”

“ This is so even while the bedrooms of married and unmarried heterosexual couples would not be subjected to such government interference and scrutiny, because they are not covered by the Arkansas sodomy statute. The State's position is totally at odds with the bedrock principles of independence, freedom, happiness, and security which form the core of our individual rights under the Arkansas Constitution:
All men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights, amongst which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty ”