Ridout v. State

Dissenting Opinion.

Cook, J.,

delivered the dissenting opinion.

The law should he declared as written, otherwise judicial declaration is the will of the judge, not the law of the State. In brushing away the artifices of the law called technicality, courts should not open the way for extrajudicial determination of rights involving life, liberty and property. Courts are to declare the law as written and when the State, speaking through the courts, goes about enforcing the law, the law should be observed as written and not made for the occasion.

In this dissenting opinion the law is stated as I…