Gordon v. State

Decided July 1, 1877

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1877-07-01

Tried below before the Hon. John P. White. This was a proceeding instituted on the 3d day of July, 1875, by the district attorney for the county of Guadalupe, to remove John F. Gordon from the office of sheriff, for official misconduct and neglect of official duty.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently February 1941

9 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Roberts, Chief Justice.

¶1This suit must be dismissed for the want of jurisdiction. The peculiar and summary power to remove the sheriff, conferred by the Constitution of 1869, does not now exist. (Sec. 18, art. 5, Const. 1869.)

¶2The remedy for a removal of the sheriff and other county officers, prescribed in the Constitution of 1876, is different, in that it requires the facts constituting the grounds of removal to be presented in a written charge, and to be found to be true by a jury. (Sec. 24, art. 5, Const. 1876.) The District Court would, therefore, have no power to carry into effect the judgment of this court, if it was affirmed here, and sent back there. In addition to this, the term of office of the sheriff has long since expired, and a decision would be useless and inoperative.

¶3Dismissed.