finding statutes authorizing mayors to sit as judges over ordinance violations and traffic offenses facially unconstitutional and rejecting argument that the right to appeal to a county court of common pleas was a sufficient procedural safeguard: "Nor, in any event, may the State's trial court procedure be deemed constitutionally acceptable simply because the State eventually offers a defendant an impartial adjudication"
How later courts described this case
- finding statutes authorizing mayors to sit as judges over ordinance violations and traffic offenses facially unconstitutional and rejecting argument that the right to appeal to a county court of common pleas was a sufficient procedural safeguard: "Nor, in any event, may the State's trial court procedure be deemed constitutionally acceptable simply because the State eventually offers a defendant an impartial adjudication"
- holding that a quasi-judicial official cannot, consonant with due process, act as a decisionmaker when he is placed in a situation “which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge to forget the burden of proof required to convict the defendant, or *409 which might lead him not to hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- concluding that Ohio's trial court procedure would not be deemed constitutionally acceptable simply because it eventually offered an impartial adjudication to the defendant, who had been convicted of a traffic violation by a village mayor with a pecuniary interest in the outcome, as the defendant was “entitled to a neutral and detached judge in the first instance”
- determining that mayor, sitting as judge over traffic offenses and imposing fines therefor, was not impartial where mayor also was responsible for accounting for village revenues which were derived, in large part, from "fines, forfeitures, costs and fees imposed by him in his mayor's court"
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Gary v. Schofield, 336 F. Supp. 2d 1337 (2004)
409 U.S. 57, 93 S.Ct. 80, 34 L.Ed.2d 267 (1972), is distinguishable from the facts of the present case.
Distinguished by a later decision, 725 F.2d 843 (1984)
Ward v. Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57, 93 S.Ct. 80, 34 L.Ed.2d 267 (1972), which it cites as support is distinguishable.
Distinguished by People v. McDonnell, 104 Ill. App. 3d 929 (1982)
Similarly, Ward v. Village of Monroeville (1972), 409 U.S. 57, 34 L. Ed. 2d 267, 93 S. Ct. 80, where the mayor was apting as a judge, is inapposite to the case before us.
The opinion
Mr. Justice White,
with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins,
dissenting.
The Ohio mayor who judged this case had no direct financial stake in its outcome. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 (1927), is therefore not controlling, and I would not extend it.
To justify striking down the Ohio system on its face, the Court must assume either that every mayor-judge in every case will disregard his oath and administer justice contrary to constitutional commands or that this will happen often enough to warrant the prophylactic, per se rule urged by petitioner. I can make neither assumption with respect to Ohio mayors nor with respect to similar officials in 16 other States. Hence, I would leave the due process matter to.be decided on a case-by-case basis, a question which, as I understand the posture of this case, is not now before us. I would affirm the judgment.