Due Process of law is the right of the Citizen affected thereby to be present before the tribunal which pronounces judgement upon the question of life, liberty, or property, in its most comprehensive sense; to be heard, by testimony or otherwise, and to have the right of controverting, by proof, every material fact which bears on the question of right in the matter involved. If any question of fact or liability be conclusively presumed against him, this is not due process of law." ~Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Edition, page 500.
(b) An accused is entitled to a public trial, at least to the extent of having his friends, relatives and counsel present -- no matter with what offense he may be charged. Pp. 333 U. S. 271-272.
"[e]very procedure which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge . . . not to hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused, denies the latter due process of law." Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 532. Such a stringent rule may sometimes bar trial by judges who have no actual bias and who would do their very best to weigh the scales of justice equally between contending parties. But to perform its high function in the best way "justice must satisfy the appearance of justice." Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 14
Matz, A Howard reference * Short Description * United States federal judge. The "Bonsai Tree" Hanging Judge.
Category: Judges of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Category: United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton
Category: 1943 births * Category: Living people
Given name Alvin Howard
Name * A. Howard Matz, A Howard Matz
Matz, A. Howard
Born 1943 in Brooklyn, NY
Federal Judicial Service:
Judge, U. S. District Court, Central District of California
Nominated by William J. Clinton on October 20, 1997, to a seat vacated by Harry L. Hupp; Confirmed by the Senate on June 26, 1998, and received commission on June 29, 1998.
Professional Career:
Law clerk, Hon. Morris E. Lasker, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 1969-1970
Private practice, New York City, 1970-1972
Private practice, Los Angeles, CA, 1972-1974
Assistant U.S. attorney, Central District of California, 1974-1978 Chief, Special Prosecutions Unit, 1977-1978
Private practice, Los Angeles, CA, 1979-1998
It is as much a violation of due process to send an accused to prison following conviction of a charge on which he was never tried as it would be to convict him upon a charge that was never made. De Jonge v. State of Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 362, 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, 81 L.Ed. 278.
Entrapment by estoppel is the "unintentional entrapment
by an official who mistakenly misleads a person into a
violation of the law," and it is a theory derived from the due
process clause. United States v. Batterjee, 361 F.3d 1210,
1216 (9th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation and citation omitted).
Thus, the Constitution does not guarantee
that a criminal defendant be present at all stages of the trial but
rather only at “critical stage[s].” La Crosse v. Kernan, 244 F.3d
702, 707-08 (9th Cir. 2001).
See also Fisher v. Roe, 263 F.3d 906,
914-15 (9th Cir. 2001) (citing Snyder, 291 U.S. at 105-06)
(defendant has a right to be present if his presence “has a relation,
reasonably substantial, to the fullness of his opportunity to defend
against the charge”).
Members:
Judge George H. King, Chair
Judge Roger L. Hunt
Judge Lawrence K. Karlton Judge A. Howard Matz
Judge Jeffrey T. Miller
Judge Marsha J. Pechman
Magistrate Judge John Jelderks
Okay, so we all get the issue that I can only be present at "critical stages."
So much for the right to be at "every stage"... unless it involves the question of a law. A question of a man's incompetence is "a question of fact, not law!"
In the United States, criminal prosecutions and civil cases are generally governed by explicit guarantees of procedural rights under the Bill of Rights.
Most of these rights have been incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment to the States.
Among those rights is the constitutional right to procedural due process, which has been broadly construed to protect the individual so that statutes, regulations, and enforcement actions must ensure that no one is deprived of "life, liberty, or property" without a fair opportunity to affect the judgment or result.
In criminal cases, many of these due process protections overlap with procedural protections provided by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees reliable procedures that protect innocent people from being executed, which would be tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.[26]
Or, to put it more simply, where an individual is facing a (1) deprivation of (2) life, liberty, or property, (3) procedural due process mandates that he or she is entitled to adequate notice, a hearing, and a neutral judge.
The Supreme Court has formulated a balancing test to determine the rigor with which the requirements of procedural due process should be applied to a particular deprivation, for the obvious reason that mandating such requirements in the most expansive way for even the most minor deprivations would bring the machinery of government to a halt. The Court set out the test as follows: "[I]dentification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: first, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and, finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail."[29]
Procedural due process has also been an important factor in the development of the law of personal jurisdiction, in the sense that it is inherently unfair for the judicial machinery of a state to take away the property of a person who has no connection to it whatsoever. A significant portion of U.S. constitutional law is therefore directed to what kinds of connections to a state are enough for that state's assertion of jurisdiction over a nonresident to comport with procedural due process.