Source: https://openjurist.org/188/us/505
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:32:39+00:00

Document:
Act No. 237 of the public acts of the state of Michigan (1899) directed the appointment of 'a board of registration in medicine,' to hold two regular meetings at specified times in each year at the state capitol, and additional meetings at such times and places as it might determine; required all persons engaging in the practice of medicine and surgery to obtain from such board a certificate of registration; prescribed the conditions upon which such certificate should be granted, and forbade, under penalty, the practice of medicine or surgery without such certificate. The conditions above referred to were either a satisfactory examination, or the possession of 'a diploma from any legally incorporated, regularly established, and reputable college of medicine, . . . having at least a three years' course of eight months in each year, or a course of four years of six months in each year, . . . as shall be approved and designated by the board of registration,' with a proviso that 'the board of registration shall not register any person by reason of a diploma from any college which sells, or advertises to sell, diplomas 'without attendance,' nor from any other than a regularly established and reputable college.' Another provision was that an applicant should be given a certificate of registration if he should 'present sufficient proof within six months after the passage of this act of his having already been legally registered under act No. 167 of 1883, as amended in 1887, entitled 'An Act to Promote Public Health." The plaintiff in error was prosecuted and convicted in the circuit court for the county of Muskegon of a violation of this statute, which conviction was affirmed by the supreme court of the state (127 Mich. 87, 86 N. W. 396), to reverse which ruling this writ of error was sued out.
Messrs. William P. Belden, Edwin A. Burlingame, and Jesse F. Orton for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. Charles B. Cross, Charles A. Blair, George S. Lovelace, and Horace M. Oren for defendants in error.
The power of a state to make reasonable provisions for determining the qualifications of those engaging in the practice of medicine, of those engagin in the practice of medicine, and punishing those who attempt to engage therein in defiance of such statutory provisions, is not open to question. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 32 L. ed. 623, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 231; Hawker v. New York, 170 U. S. 189, 42 L. ed. 1002, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 573, and cases cited in the opinion; State ex rel. Burroughs v. Webster, 150 Ind. 607, 41 L. R. A. 212, 50 N. E. 750, and cases cited.
Neither is the right of appeal essential to due process of law. In nearly every state are statutes giving, in criminal cases of a minor nature, a single trial, without any right of review. For nearly a century trials under the Federal practice for even the gravest offenses ended in the trial court, except in cases where two judges were present and certified a question of law to this court. In civil cases a common rule is that the amount in controversy limits the entire litigation to one court, yet there was never any serious question that in these cases due process of law was granted.
In McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687, 38 L. ed. 867, 868, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 913, 915, this court declared that 'a review by an appellate court of the final judgment in a criminal case, however grave the offense of which the accused is convicted, was not at common law, and is not now a necessary element of due process of law.' See also Andrews v. Suartz, 156 U. S. 272, 39 L. ed. 422, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 389.
But while the statute makes in terms no provision for areview of the proceedings of the board, yet it is not true that such proceedings are beyond investigation in the courts. In Metcalfe v. State Bd. of Registration, 123 Mich. 661, 82 N. W. 512, an application for mandamus to compel this board to register the petitioner was entertained, and although the application was denied, yet the denial was based, not upon a want of jurisdiction in the court, but upon the merits.
It is further insisted that it is essential to a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding that it should give a person accused or interested the benefit of a hearing, and that there is in this statute no special provision for notice, or hearing, or authority to summon witnesses or to compel them to testify. The statute provides for semiannual meetings at specified times at the state capitol, but the plaintiff in error did not appear at any of these meetings or there present an application for registration or showing of his right thereto; he simply sent to the secretary of the board a certified copy of his registration under the prior statute, and his diploma from the Independent Medical College of Chicago, Illinois. The latter was returned with a notice from the board that it had denied the application for registration. When a statute fixes the time and place of meeting of any board or tribunal, no special notice to parties interested is required. The statute is itself sufficient notice. If plaintiff in error had applied at any meeting for a hearing the board would have been compelled to grant it, and if on such hearing his offer of or demand for testimony had been refused, the question might have been fairly presented to the state courts to what extent the action of the board had deprived him of his rights.
He seems to assume that the proceedings before the board were in themselves of a criminal nature, and that the state by such proceedings was endeavoring to convict him of an offense in the practice of his profession. But this is a mistake. The state was simply seeking to ascertain who ought to be permitted to practise medicine or surgery, and criminality arises only when one assumes to practise without having his right so to do established by the action of the board. The proceedings of the board to determine his qualifications are no more criminal than examinations of applicants to teach or practise law, and if the provisions for testing such qualifications are reasonable in their nature, a party must comply with them, and has no right to practise his profession is defiance thereof.
It is further insisted that having once engaged in the practice, and having been licensed so to do, he had a right to continue in such practice, and that this statute was in the nature of an ex post facto law. The case of Hawker v. New York, 170 U. S. 189, 42 L. ed. 1002, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 573, is decisive upon this question. The statute does not attempt to punish him for any past offense, and in the most extreme view can only be considered as requiring continuing evidence of his qualifications as a physician or surgeon. As shown in Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 32 L. ed. 623, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 231, there is no similarity between statutes like this and the proceedings which were adjudged void in Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 18 L. ed. 356, and Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, 18 L. ed. 366.
We fail to see anything in the statute which brings it within the inhibitions of the Federal Constitution, and therefore the judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan is affirmed.
4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 111.

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