Goldsborough v. Lloyd

McSherry, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for a writ of mandamus. The petition was filed by the appellant, who is the State’s Attorney of Dorchester County, and it was filed against the Honorable Henry Lloyd, who is one of the Associate Judges of the First Judicial Circuit, which includes that county. Its object is to require the Judge to approve an account of the State’s Attorney for fees claimed by him to be due for professional services rendered as prosecuting attorney of the county named.

The petition is addressed to the Judges of the Circuit Court for Dorchester County, and Judge Lloyd is himself one of those Judges. By Article 36, section 10 of the Code of Public General Laws, all State’s Attorneys are allowed an appearance fee of ten dollars in cases where the punishment for the crime charged is death or confinement in the penitentiary, and in all other criminal cases the appearance fee is, by the same section, fixed at three dollars and thirty-three cents. The Local Laws of Dorchester County, Article 10, sec. 286, authorize the Judges of the Circuit Court to allow in addition to these appearance fees, such trial fees to be paid by the County Commissioners to the State’s Attorney as the Judges may deem just and proper. The local Act of 1894, ch. 213, provides that the Judges of the Circuit Court for Dorchester County may allow to the State’s Attorney such compensation not exceeding one hundred and fifty dollars per year, as they may think just and proper for services rendered before committing magistrates in preliminary examinations.

The same Act further provides that for all trials in criminal cases before Justices of the Peace the same fees shall be allowed to the State’s Attorney as are now allowed in similar cases before the Circuit Court * * * “provided that the compensation so allowed, together with the total ot the fees received, shall not amount to more than twelve hundred dollars in any one year.” Judge Lloyd construed this statute to mean that the State’s Attorney was restricted to only twelve hundred dollars a year in full compensation ³⁷⁶ for his services, even though in point of fact the fees actually earned by him exceeded that sum. Accordingly the Judge refused to certify and approve the appellant’s account for fees actually earned over and above that amount. The general statute, which requires the Judges of the several Circuit Courts to approve the accounts of the State’s Attorneys and which imposes upon the County Commissioners of the various counties the duty to pay the accounts as certified, will be found in Art. 10, sec. 21 of the Code; and the Local Law as applicable to Dorchester County in the Act of 1892, ch. 259. Upon the refusal of Judge Lloyd to approve the appellant’s account for a sum greater than twelve hundred dollars the pending petition for the writ of mandamus was filed, asking that the Judge be required to approve and certify the account which had been presented to him.

We shall not pause to consider whether the construction placed by the learned Judge upon the Act of 1894 is correct or not, because there are other questions at the very threshold of the case that of themselves are decisive of this controversy without regard to the meaning and effect of this particular statute. It must be borne in mind that the State’s Attorneys are officers who are paid by fees—the Constitution of the State fixes no salary for them and they belong to that class of officials the maxium of whose compensation is limited by Art. 15, sec. 1 of the Constitution, to the sum of three thousand dollars. By this section State’s Attorneys, together with other officers embraced therein, are allowed to retain for their remuneration the fees received by them up to the amount of three thousand dollars, whilst all sums in excess of that figure and the expenses of the office are required to be paid into the State Treasury. Now, this being so, it is