Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

72 Ark. 230

Peterson v. Culpepper

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided March 20, 1904

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1904-03-20

Antonio B. Grace, Judge. Action by J. F. Culpepper against the city of Pine Bluff, to which E. A. Peterson was made a party defendant also. Judgment for plaintiff, from which defendant appeals. STATEMENT BY THE COURT.

Relies on Payne v. Rittman

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1904-03-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently February 2008

6 state decisions

2019041910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Hughes, J.

¶1(after stating the facts). The provisions of the constitution involved in the controversy here are as follows:

¶2Article 4, § 1. “The powers of the government of the state of Arkansas shall be divided into three distinct departments, each of them to be confined to a separate body of magistracy, to-wit: Those which are legislative to one; those which are executive to another, and those which are judicial to another.”

¶3Section 2. “No person or collection of persons, being of one of these departments, shall exercise any power belonging to either of the others, except in the instances hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.”

¶4Article 19, § 6. “No person shall hold or perform the duties of more than one. office in the same department of the government at the same time, except as expressly directed or permitted by this constitution.”

¶5Section 26. “Militia officers, officers of the public schools, and notaries may be elected to fill any executive or judicial office.”

¶6In the case of State v. Townsend, ante, p. 180, a similar question to the question in this case was decided by this court, in which it was held that the duties of the offices of probate judge and recorder of a town were not incompatible; and that where the constitution referred to officers in the provisions above quoted, it meant state officers, and that a recorder of a town was not a state officer. Payne v. Rittman, 66 Ark. 201.

¶7We are of the opinion that the chief of police of a city of the first class is not a state officer, and that there is no incompatibility between the office of sheriff and the position of chief of police. The duties and powers of the two are sometimes the same, and the manner of discharging them is substantially the same. This falls within State v. Townsend, ante, p. 180.

¶8Finding no error, the judgment is affirmed.

/72/ark/230 · .json · Public domain