OFFICER. One who is lawfully invested with an office.
An office is a public charge or employ ment; and one who performs the duties of an office is an officer. Marshall, C. J., in U. S. v. Maurice, 2 Brock. 102, Fed. Cas. No. 15,747.
Executive officers are those whose duties are mainly to cause the laws to be executed.
Legislative officers are those whose duties relate mainly to the enactment of laws, such as members of congress and of the several state legislatures. These officers are con fined in their duties by the constitution gen erally to make laws, though sometimes, in cases of impeachment, one of the houses of the legislature exercises judicial functions somewhat similar to those of a grand jury, by presenting to the other articles of im peachment, and the other house acts as a court in trying such impeachment.
Judicial officers are those whose duties are to decide controversies between individuals, and accusations made in the name of the public against persons charged with viola tions of the law.
Ministerial officers are those whose duty it is to execute the mandates, lawfully is sued, of their superiors.
Military officers are those who have com mand in the army. Non-commissioned offi cers are not officers in the sense in which that word is generally used; Babbitt v. U. S., 16 Ct. Cls. 214.
Naval officers are those who are in com mand in the navy.
Officers are also divided into public offi cers and those who are not public. Some officers may bear both characters : for ex ample, a clergyman is a public officer when he acts in the performance of such a public duty as the marriage of two individuals; Goshen v. Stonington, 4 Conn. 209, 10 Am. Dec. 121; and he is merely a private per son when he acts in his more ordinary call ing of teaching his congregation. See Kibbe v. Antram, 4 Conn. 134.
Officers are required to exercise the func tions which belong to their respective offices. The neglect to do so may, in some cases, sub ject the offender to an indictment ; Respub lica v. Montgomery, 1 Yeates (Pa.) 419; and
in others he will be liable to the party in jured; Work v. Hoofnagle, 1 Yeates (Pa.) 506.
Public office in the constitution means a permanent public trust or employment, not merely transient, occasional, or incidental; In re Hathaway, 71 N. Y. 238. The term em braces the ideas of tenure, duration, emolu ments, and duties; U. S. v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. (U. S.) 385, 18 L. Ed. 830; but it has been held that duration and salary are not of the essence of public office, and that the duty of acting for and on behalf of the state constitutes an office ; People v. Bledsoe, 68 N. C. 457; even though it expires as soon as a single act is done; State v. Stanley, 66 N. C. 59, 8 Am. Rep. 488. The true test is that it is a parcel of the administration of government ; Eliason v. Coleman, 86 N. C. 241; though it is a clerkship in a department and the duties are confined within narrow limits ; Vaughn v. English, 8 Cal. 39.
An office commonly requires something more than a single transitory act or trans action to call it into being ; Carrington v. U. S., 208 U. S. 1, 28 Sup. Ct. 203, 52 L. Ed. 367, where an army officer received $3,500 from civil sources to be used by him in connec tion with his military duties ; it was held that he was not amenable to the Philippine penal code punishing a public official for falsification of a public document.
A public officer is one who renders a pub lic service-a Service in which the general public is interested ; Schmitt v. Dooling, 145 Ky. 240, 140 S. W. 197, 36 L. R. A. (N. S.) 881, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 1078. One who exer cises some portion of the sovereign power of the state, either in making, administering or executing the laws ; Olmstead v. New York, 10 Jones & S. (N. Y.) 481; Eliason v. Coleman, 86 N. C. 235. It is said to depend upon the greater importance and dignity of the position; the requirement of an oath and perhaps of a bond, and usually upon the tenure; People v. Langdon, 40 Mich. 673.