“It must be kept in mind, also, that in construing a statute or in seeking to ascertain the legislative intent in enacting a statute, the courts must not enter the field of legislation and write, rewrite, change, or add to a law.”
How later courts described this case
- “It must be kept in mind, also, that in construing a statute or in seeking to ascertain the legislative intent in enacting a statute, the courts must not enter the field of legislation and write, rewrite, change, or add to a law.”
- “[I]n construing a statute or in seeking to ascertain legislative intent in enacting a statute, the courts must not enter the field of legislation and write, re-write, change, or add to a law.”
- court may strike portions of the statute but may not rewrite, change or add to the law
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MORRISON, Judge Presiding
(Concurring).
That Article 725c, V.A.P.C., was adopted to meet an urgent social and health need cannot be questioned. Courts should not strike down such legislation without pointing to a possible cure for the defect which caused the statute to fall.
Article 137, V.A.C.C.P., provides:
“When a judge or court authorized to grant writs of habeas corpus shall be satisfied, upon investigation, that a person in legal custody is afflicted with a disease which will render a removal necessary for the preservation of life, an order may be made for the removal of the prisoner to some other place where his health will not be likely to suffer; or he may be admitted to bail when it appears that any species of confinement will endanger his life.”
It is apparent from this article, which has not been successfully challenged, that the legislature has already given the trial court certain control over the place in which one convicted may be incarcerated.
In order for the legislature to constitutionally achieve the end desired by the passage of Article 725c, it would appear to *610 the writer that they might do so by deleting Section 4 and giving to the trial judge similar powers heretofore given by Article 187 in fixing the place of imprisonment of one convicted under this act.