Background and Discussion. Absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, the opportunity to be heard must be tailored to the capacities and circumstances of those who are to be heard, and must be at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. The comment occurs in the court's discussion of the different purposes of section 3060 proceedings and criminal actions, where the court concluded those accused under section 3060 are not so similarly situtated with charged felons as to require a preliminary hearing. Wilfully,' in this connection, 'implies simply a purpose or willingness to commit the act, or make the omission referred to. The exercise of quasi-judicial power requires an impartial decision maker.
Due process requires a fair trial before an impartial tribunal.
It is a general rule of ethics that no person or body of persons should sit in judgment in cases and proceedings in which they are interested, and violation of this rule by persons presiding over causes triable in ordinary courts of justice amounts to a denial of due process of law to those who are injuriously affected. Thus, a trial before an unbiased judge is essential to due process, and an accused is unconstitutionally deprived of due process of law if his or her liberty and property are subjected to the judgment of a court the judge of which has a direct and substantial pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against him or her. I was reading a novel a while ago which described the instinctive behavior of a troop of baboons in massing to protect the weak and injured members of the troop against an outside threat. So I am going to clean up the mess. Thus it is that the profession and practice of the law, while in a limited sense a matter of private choice and concern in so far as it relates to its emoluments, is essentially and more largely a matter of public interest and concern , not only from the viewpoint of its relation to administration of civil and criminal law, but also from that of the contacts of its membership with the constituent membership of society at large, whose interest it is to be safeguarded against the ignorances or evil dispositions of those who may be masquerading beneath the cloak of the legal and supposedly learned and upright profession .