William Howard Taft

“ It is very much like the interest which similar officers would feel in enforcing a state law, the sanction of which was a penalty. The sum thus to be recovered goes in exoneration of some part of the burden of government to which every citizen is subjected; but such an interest has no effect upon the mind. It is too slight to excite prejudice against a defendant. The same thing is the case here. For the judge, sheriff and jurors, are members of a corporation of many thousand members. ”

“ The mayor received for his fees and costs in the present case $12, and from such costs under the Prohibition Act for seven months he made about $100 a month, in addition to his salary. We cannot regard the prospect of receipt or loss of such an emolument in each case as a minute, remote, trifling, or insignificant interest. It is certainly not fair to each defendant brought before the mayor for the careful and judicial consideration of his guilt or innocence that the prospect of such a prospective loss by the mayor should weigh against his aquittal. ”

“ With his interest as mayor in the financial condition of the village and his responsibility therefor, might not a defendant with reason say that he feared he could not get a fair trial or a fair sentence from one who would have so strong a motive to help his village by conviction and a heavy fine? ”

“ A situation in which an official perforce occupies two practically and seriously inconsistent positions, one partisan and the other judicial, necessarily involves a lack of due process of law in the trial of defendants charged with crimes before him. ”

“ There are doubtless mayors who would not allow such a consideration as $12 costs in each case to affect their judgment in it, but the requirement of due process of law in judicial procedure is not satisfied by the argument that men of the highest honor and the greatest self-sacrifice could carry it on without danger of injustice. ”

“ But the establishment and jurisdiction of the city court commences with the act of 1801. * * * By that act it is clothed with the power of trying all offences against the by-laws of the city, and for that purpose is given concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of Sessions. This grant of power is from all the people of the state, through their Legislature, and surely they have the power to dispense with the common-law objection, that the corporators were interested, and ought not to be intrusted with the enforcement of their laws against others. ”

“ The mayor of the village of North College Hill, Ohio, has a direct personal pecuniary interest in convicting the defendant who came before him for trial, in the $12 of costs imposed in his behalf, which he would not have received if the defendant had been acquitted. ”

“ Under the authority of the last section, the village council of North College Hill passed Ordinance No. 125, as follows: 'An ordinance to provide for compensation to be paid from the secret service funds of the village of North College Hill, Hamilton county, Ohio, created by authority of section 6212-37, of the General Code of Ohio, to detectives, secret service officers, deputy marshals' and attorneys' fees, costs, etc., for services in securing evidence necessary to conviction and prosecuting violation of the law of the state of Ohio prohibiting the liquor traffic. ”

“ These are not cases in which the penalties and the costs are negligible. The field of jurisdiction is not that of a small community, engaged in enforcing its own local regulations. The court is a state agency, imposing substantial punishment, and the cases to be considered are gathered from the whole county by the energy of the village marshals and detectives regularly employed by the village for the purpose. ”

“ It specifically authorizes the village to employ detectives, deputy marshals, and other assistants to detect crime of this kind all over the county, and to bring offenders before the mayor's court, and it offers to the village council and its officers a means of substantially adding to the income of the village to relieve it from further taxation. The mayor is the chief executive of the village. He supervises all the other executive officers. ”

“ It is further said with truth that the Legislature of a state may and often ought to stimulate prosecutions for crime by offering to those who shall initiate and carry on such prosecutions rewards for thus acting in the interest of the state and the people. ”

“ In two of these states only has the question been considered by their courts, and it has been held that provision for payment to the judge of fees only in case of conviction does not disqualify him. Those are Bennett v. State, 4 Tex. App. 72; Wellmaker v. Terrell, 3 Ga. App. 791, 60 S. E. 464. There is no discussion in either of the question of due process of law. The existence of a statute authorizing the practice seems to have been the controlling consideration. Two other cases are cited. In Ex parte Guerrero, 69 Cal. 88, 10 P. 261, the judge was paid a regular salary fixed by law. ”

“ One is in respect to the effect of the membership of a judge in a class of taxpayers or others to be affected by a principle of law, statutory or constitutional, to be applied in a case between other parties and in which the judge has no other interest. ”

“ The strict common-law rule was adopted in this country as one to be enforced where nothing but the common law controlled, and citizens and taxpayers have been held incompetent to sit in suits against the municipal corporation of which they have been residents. ”

“ Raine, Auditor, 50 Ohio St. 378, 34 N. E. 536, the question arose whether the fee of 4 per cent. payable to county auditors for placing omitted property on the duplicate list for taxation, which required investigation and quasi judicial consideration, was invalid. The court held that it was not, and that the objection urged there could not be based on the argument that a man could not be a judge in his own case ”

“ A case, much cited, in which this conclusion was reached, and in which the old English corporation cases were considered, was that of City Council v. Pepper, 1 Rich. (S.C..) 364. The recorder of the city of Charleston sentenced a nonresident of the city for violation of a city ordinance requiring him to take out a license for what he did, or to pay a fine not exceeding $20. The contention was that the defendant was a noncorporator and nonresident, and not subject to the jurisdiction of the city court ”

“ And such council are hereby authorized to appropriate not more than five hundred dollars annually from the general revenue fund, for the purpose of enforcing the law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, when there are no funds available from the fines collected for the violation of such prohibitory law.' 109 Ohio Laws, p. ”