![]() ![]() ![]() 447 “The precise nature of the interest that has been adversely affected, the manner in which this was done, the reasons for doing it, the available alternatives to the procedure that was followed, the protection implicit in the office of the functionary whose conduct is challenged, the balance of hurt complained of and good accomplished-these are some of the considerations that must enter into the judicial judgment.” 448Īdministrative Proceedings: A Fair Hearing.-With respect to action taken by administrative agencies, the Court has held that the demands of due process do not require a hearing at the initial stage, or at any particular point in the proceeding, so long as a hearing is held before the final order becomes effective. 445 “In all cases, that kind of procedure is due process of law which is suitable and proper to the nature of the case, and sanctioned by the established customs and usages of the courts.” 446 What is unfair in one situation may be fair in another. Generally.-The phrase “due process of law” does not necessarily imply a proceeding in a court or a plenary suit and trial by jury in every case where personal or property rights are involved. It follows that any legal proceeding enforced by public authority, whether sanctioned by age and custom, or newly devised in the discretion of the legislative power, in furtherance of the general public good, which regards and preserves these principles of liberty and justice, must be held to be due process of law.” 444 But when California’s abandonment of indictment by grand jury was challenged, the Court refused to be limited by the fact that such proceeding was the English practice and that Coke had indicated that it was a proceeding required as “the law of the land.” The Court in Murray’s Lessee meant “that a process of law, which is not otherwise forbidden, must be taken to be due process of law, if it can show the sanction of settled usage both in England and in this country but it by no means follows that nothing else can be due process of law.” To hold that only historical, traditional procedures can constitute due process, the Court said, “would be to deny every quality of the law but its age, and to render it incapable of progress or improvement.” 443 Therefore, the Court concluded, due process “must be held to guarantee not particular forms of procedures, but the very substance of individual rights to life, liberty, and property.” The Due Process Clause prescribed “the limits of those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions. This formal approach to the meaning of due process could obviously have limited both Congress and the state legislatures in the development of procedures unknown to English law. Therefore, “ested by the common and statute law of England prior to the emigration of our ancestors, and by the laws of many of the States at the time of the adoption of this amendment, the proceedings authorized by the act of 1820 cannot be denied to be due process of law.” 442 ![]() If not found to be so, we must look to those settled usages and modes of proceedings existing in the common and statute law of England, before the emigration of our ancestors, and which are shown not to have been unsuited to their civil and political condition by having been acted on by them after the settlement of this country.” A survey of history disclosed that the law in England seemed always to have contained a summary method, not unlike the law in question, for recovering debts owed the Crown. We must examine the constitution itself, to see whether this process be in conflict with any of its provisions. The Court first ascertained that Congress was not free to make any process “due process.” “To what principles, then, are we to resort to ascertain whether this process, enacted by congress, is due process? To this the answer must be twofold. At issue was the constitutionality of summary proceedings under a distress warrant to levy on the lands of a government debtor. In 1855, the Court first attempted to assess its standards for judging what was due process. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
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