Due process of law

“ If it be taken that the exceptions in this respect amount to a claim of violation of the due-process-of-law clause of the Constitution, which protects against the taking of private property without compensation, and that the effect of the judgment of the court of appeals is to deny this claim, we proceed to inquire, do the proceedings show a want of due process in the result reached and affirmed by the court of appeals in its judgment answering the questions propounded by the appellate division? ”

“ Viewing the dismissal of petitioner's appeal in the light of its reasonableness in sustaining the effectiveness of a state's judicial process, as against the rights of a judgment debtor, without filing a supersedeas bond, to refuse to comply with orders safeguarding the value of that judgment, we find nothing that violates due process of law. ”

“ The proceeding supposed would violate that fundamental principle contained in chapter twenty-ninth of Magna Charta, and embodied in the Constitution of the United States, that no man shall be deprived of his property without due process of law-that is, he must be served with notice of the proceeding, and have a day in court to make his defence. ”

“ Deciding that an ambiguous or self-contradictory law violates due process is a far cry from holding that a law violates due process because it is 'unfair' or 'shocking' to a judge or violates 'the Anglo-American legal heritage.' A due process criminal trial means a trial in a court, with an independent judge lawfully selected, a jury, a defendant's lawyer if the defendant wants one, a court with power to issue compulsory process for witnesses, and with all the other guarantees provided by the Constitution and valid laws passed pursuant to it. ”

“ Alleging irreparable injury and a substantial uncertainty of legal relations (a local procedural requisite for a declaration) , plaintiffs ask a declaratory judgment that §§ 53-32 and 54-196 are unconstitutional, in that they deprive the plaintiffs of life and liberty without due process of law. ”

“ Although the Court finds petitioner's claim without merit, I dissent from its holding that a general claim of 'unfairness' at the lineup is 'open to all persons to allege and prove'. The term 'due process of law' is a direct descendant of Magna Charta's promise of a trial according to the 'law of the land' as it has been established by the lawmaking agency, constitutional or legislative. ”

“ Failure to observe the fundamental requirements of due process has resulted in instances, which might have been avoided, of unfairness to individuals and inadequate or inaccurate findings of fact and unfortunate prescriptions of remedy. Due process of law is the primary and indispensable foundation of individual freedom. ”

“ It is substantially admitted by counsel in the argument that such is not the case, if it has been done 'in the due course of legal proceedings, according to those rules and forms which have been established for the protection of private rights.' We accept this as a sufficient definition of the term 'due process of law,' for the purposes of the present case. ”

“ No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, possessions or rights without due process of law instituted before a duly created court, in which the essential elements of procedure are observed and in accordance with previously existing laws. ”

“ The due process clause requires that every man shall have the protection of his day in court, and the benefit of the general law, a law which hears before it condemns, which proceeds not arbitrarily or capriciously, but upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after trial, so that every citizen shall hold his life, liberty, property and immunities under the protection of the general rules which govern society. ”

“ The doctrine of res judicata rests at bottom upon the ground that the party to be affected, or some other with whom he is in privity, has litigated or had an opportunity to litigate the same matter in a former action in a court of competent jurisdiction. Southern Pacific R. R. v. United States, 168 U.S. 1, 48, 18 Sup. Ct. 18, 42 L. Ed. 355; Greenl. Ev. §§ 522, 523. The opportunity to be heard is an essential requisite of due process of law in judicial proceedings. ”

“ The fact that the substantive law of due process is and probably must remain so vague and unsettled as to invite farfetched or border-line petitions makes it important to adhere to procedures which enable courts readily to distinguish a probable constitutional grievance from a convict's mere gamble on persuading some indulgent judge to let him out of jail. ”

“ We have to consider whether the right is so fundamental in due process that a refusal of the right is a denial of due process. One aid to the solution of the question is to inquire how the right was rated during the time when the meaning of due process was in a formative state, and before it was incorporated in American constitutional law. ”

“ The common-law scheme yields unfair and inconsistent results "in so many instances that it should be held violative of due process in every case." Burnham, 495 U.S., at 628, 110 S.Ct., at 2119 (WHITE, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) . ”

“ A procedural due process claim consists of two elements: (i) deprivation by state action of a protected interest in life, liberty, or property, and (ii) inadequate state process. See Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U. S. 113, 125 (1990) . ”

“ Prior cases establish, first, that due process requires, at a minimum, that absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, persons forced to settle their claims of right and duty through the judicial process must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard. ”

“ It is true, of course, that "the fundamental requirement of due process is an opportunity to be heard upon such notice and proceedings as are adequate to safeguard the right for which the constitutional protection is invoked." ”

“ Due process, moreover, is a guarantee that a man should be tried and convicted only in accordance with valid laws of the land. If a conviction is not valid under these laws, statutory and constitutional, a man has been denied due process and has a constitutional right to have the conviction set aside, without being deprived of life, liberty, or property as a result. ”

“ When the essential elements of a court having jurisdiction in which an opportunity for a hearing is afforded are present, the power of a state over its methods of procedure is substantially unrestricted by the due process clause of the Constitution. ”

“ The short of the matter is that jurisdiction based on physical presence alone constitutes due process because it is one of the continuing traditions of our legal system that define the due process standard of "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." ”

“ Where such fact occurs in any stage of a cause, whether it be in a court of original or appellate jurisdiction, if it occur as to any of several plaintiffs or defendants, the suit may proceed for or against the others, if the cause of suit survive to or against them. If a plaintiff or defendant die pending any action, whether the cause of action would survive at common law or not, the same may be revived and prosecuted to judgment and execution in the same manner as if it were for a cause of action arising out of contract. ”

“ At other times we are told that due process is not lacking unless 'plain rights' have been ignored, with a reminder that much will be overlooked when there is nothing of unfairness or partiality in the course of the proceedings. ”

“ Since such a summary adjudication of contempt occurs in the midst of a grand jury proceeding, a clash may arise between the interest, sanctioned by history and statute, in preserving the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, and the interest, deriving from the Due Process Clause, in preserving the public nature of court proceedings. ”

“ If a case be a removable one, that is, if the suit, in its nature, be one of which the circuit court could rightfully take jurisdiction, then, upon the filing of a petition for removal, in due time, with a sufficient bond, the case is, in law, removed, and the state court in which it is pending will lose jurisdiction to proceed further, and all subsequent proceedings in that court will be void. ”

“ When the special powers conferred are brought into action according to the course of that law, that is, in the usual form of common-law and chancery proceedings, by regular process and personal service, where a personal judgment of decree is asked, or by seizure or attachment of the property where a judgment in rem is sought, the same presumption of jurisdiction will usually attend the judgments of the court as in cases failling within its general powers. ”

“ The law, however, is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed. ”

“ Just as a generally valid notice procedure may fail to satisfy due process because of the circumstances of the defendant, so too a cost requirement, valid on its face, may offend due process because it operates to foreclose a particular party's opportunity to be heard. The State's obligations under the Fourteenth Amendment are not simply generalized ones; rather, the State owes to each individual that process which, in light of the values of a free society, can be characterized as due. ”

“ The due process clause restrains alike every branch of the government, and is binding upon all who exercise Federal power, whether of an executive, legislative, or judicial character. It withholds from the executive the exercise of arbitrary authority, it prevents the judiciary from condemning one in his person or property without orderly methods of procedure adapted to the situation, and opportunity to be heard before judgment. ”

“ That policy as stated in Re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 273, 68 S.Ct. 499, 507, 508, 92 L.Ed. 682, is in part that no person shall be tried and convicted of an offense unless he is given reasonable notice of the charges against him and is afforded an opportunity to examine adverse witnesses. [3] That the due process clause does provide these salutary and time-tested protections where the question for consideration is the guilt of a defendant seems entirely clear from the genesis and historical evolution of the clause. ”

“ Inasmuch as due process implies a tribunal both impartial and mentally competent to afford a hearing, it follows that the subjection of a defendant's liberty or property to the decision of a court, the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial pecuniary interest in rendering a verdict against him, is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. ”

“ Congress has provided to the effect that where the defendant cannot be seved with process, by reason of resistance to the execution of the laws or the interruption of the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the time during which the defendant shall be beyond the reach of legal process shall not be deemed or taken as any part of the time limited by law for the commencement of such action. ”

“ Admit, then, that the act requires the witnesses to subscribe their names, can a court of chancery require or permit it now to be done? There is no time limited, in which it must be done. The act does not, like the statute of wills, require it to be done at the time. Whenever done the terms of the law are satisfied. What is it that is asked?-that the requisitions of the act should be set aside? that merely fictitious names should be inserted, to present to the eye only a compliance with the statute? ”

“ After the close of the April Term, and in the vacation next following, the judge of the court, on application of the defendants, granted an order upon the plaintiffs to show cause why the defendants should not have leave inter alia to make and serve a case or bill of exceptions, containing the evidence given at the trial, special findings of fact and law, and such exceptions thereto as the defendants might desire to make, and why such case or bill of exceptions when made and settled should not be filed, nunc pro tunc, as of the term when the judgment was entered. ”

“ Besides a challenge of the jurisdiction of the state court for want of due process over defendant in personam, to be interposed in that court, and, if overruled, followed by invoking the revisory jurisdiction of this court, the final judgment may be questioned collaterally, if in truth there be a want of due process, either defensively, as in Pennoyer v. ”

“ These questions must be decided by authority, if any such exist; if none can be found, then, they must be decided by analogy and principle. It may be proper, in this view, again to notice the fact, that this suit is on a joint and several bond; that the defendants severed in their pleas from the principal; that the trial of the issues, (which undoubtedly ought to have been, by the regular course of practice, deferred until the cause was at issue, as to all the parties, or the steps of the law taken to bring them into default;) ”