ments of Government are not equal, coördinate and independent while one is thus at the mercy of the others. What would be said of a proposition to authorize the Governor or Judges to remove a Senator or member of the House of Representatives from office?" And Lemuel Shaw, afterwards Chief Justice of Massachusetts, said in addressing the Convention: "By the Constitution as it stands, the judges hold their offices at the will of the majority of the Legislature."
How This Provision has Worked
There has been much dispute as to whether this clause for removal of judges by address in the Constitution of Massachusetts extended any further than to cover removal for incapacity. It was because of incapacity that Judge Bradbury was removed by address in 1803. He had become enfeebled by old age and unfit to do his work.
Let us glance at some of the cases which have arisen in Massachusetts. There have been a number of them. Besides Mr. Justice Bradbury, two judges of the Court of Common Pleas were removed by address in 1803 for extortion in office and two justices of the peace in 1876. The most famous cases, however, are those of Mr. Loring, Judge of the Probate Court for the County of Suffolk, and of Mr. Day, Judge of the Probate Court of the County of Barnstable. In both these latter cases hearings were given. This was the general custom. The course of procedure followed the usual method governing legislation. A petition was introduced in both cases for the removal of these judges. The petition was referred to a joint committee—in the Loring case to the Committee on Federal Relations, and in the Day case to a special committee. These committees then sat and heard the evidence for and against removal,
