The Text

The Court of Appeals is continued. It shall consist of the chief judge and associate judges now in office, who shall hold their offices until the expiration of their respective terms, and their successors, who shall be chosen by the electors of the State. The official terms of the chief judge and associate judges shall be fourteen years from and including the first day of January next after their election. Five members of the court shall form a quorum, and the concurrence of four shall be necessary to a decision. The court shall have power to appoint and to remove its reporter, clerk and attendants. Whenever and as often as a majority of the judges of the court of appeals shall certify to the Governor that said court is unable, by reason of the accumulation of causes pending therein, to hear and dispose of the same with reasonable speed, the Governor shall designate not more than four justices of the Supreme Court to serve as associate judges of the Court of Appeals. The justices so designated shall be relieved from their duties as Justices of the Supreme Court and shall serve as associate judges of the Court of Appeals until the causes undisposed of in said court are reduced to two hundred, when they shall return to the Supreme Court. The Governor may designate justices of the Supreme Court to fill vacancies. No justice shall serve as associate judge of the Court of Appeals except while holding the office of Justice of the Supreme Court, and no more than seven judges shall sit in any case. There shall be elected at the next general election to be held after the adoption of this amendment, and thereafter as vacancies may occur, two additional associate judges of the court of appeals, of the judges of which court not more than seven shall sit on the hearing of any appeal, except that the court may, in its discretion, direct a reargument to be had before the entire court. Upon the entry of the judges so elected upon their respective offices the existing provision for designating justices of the supreme court as associate judges of the court of appeals shall cease and determine. The salary of the associate judges of the court of appeals shall be the sum of fifteen thousand dollars a year, and that of the chief judge the sum of fifteen thousand five hundred dollars a year, which salary shall be in lieu of and shall exclude all other compensation and allowances for expenses of every nature and kind whatever.