Page:Revised Codes of the State of North Dakota 1895.pdf/4

iv pass laws regulating the tenure of office, the filling of vacancies therein, and the compensation of said commissioners, and shall also provide for the publication of the said code, prior to its being presented to the legislature for adoption."

Section 2 of article 6 of the constitution, providing for a commission on the subject of practice and pleadings, read as follows:

“The legislature at its first session after the adoption of this constitution, shall provide for the appointment of three commissioners, whose duty it shall be to revise, reform, simplify and abridge the rules and practice, pleadings, forms and proceedings of the courts of record of this state, and to report thereon to the legislature, subject to their adoption and modification from time to time."

Pursuant to these constitutional provisions the legislature of New York in 1847 passed an act creating the two commissions, and the commissioners were appointed that year. Mr. Field was not a member of either commission as originally constituted, but one of the first appointees resigned immediately, and Mr. Field was appointed in his place as one of the commissioners on practice and pleading. This commission in 1848 reported the code of civil procedure which was adopted that year and which has been enacted in most of the states of the Union. The code of criminal procedure, which the commission reported the following year, was not adopted in New York until 1881.

More difficulty was experienced in securing commissioners to codify the substantive law. The first commission appointed in 1847 resigned. In 1849 a new act was passed providing for another commission, but John C. Spencer, one of its most prominent members refused to serve and in 1850 the commission was abolished by an act of the legislature. In 1857 another act was passed under which David Dudley Field, Wm. Curtis Noyes and Alexander W. Bradford were appointed commissioners to continue in office for five years and to prepare codes of all the law not covered by the work of the commission on practice and pleading. In April, 1862, the term of office of these commissioners was extended to 1865. In the last named year they reported to the legislature the draft of a political code, a penal code and a civil code. Of these the penal code alone has become a law in the state of New York though it was not adopted there until 1882. The civil code has twice passed the legislature and each time been vetoed, owing to the opposition of the bar.

This state is so largely indebted to California for modifications in its system of codes that it is proper to give a brief sketch of codification in that state. Stephen J. Field, a brother of David Dudley Field, was his law partner in New York City from 1841 to 1848, during the period of the latter's greatest activity in the cause of codification. In 1848 he removed to California. As a member of the judiciary committee of the first legislative assembly of that state he exercised a controlling influence over its legislation. He framed two acts on the subject of criminal and civil practice which became laws and were thereafter known in that state as the Civil and Criminal Practice Acts. They were modeled upon the codes of civil and criminal procedure drafted by the New York commission. In 1868 a commission was appointed to revise the laws of the state. This commission apparently did not accomplish much, for the next legislature passed an act creating another commission upon the same subject. The latter commission