Opinion ID: 1496557
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of due process by refusal of the right to cross-examine

Text: As we have indicated, Judge Moorman recognized that the denial of the right of cross-examination to the protestants would be a denial of due process of law if the protestants had not waived the right or had failed to suffer prejudice from the denial of that right by proceeding to call the applicant's witnesses as their witnesses and to examine them as such. The lower court relied on the decision of this Court in Hyson v. Montgomery County Council, 242 Md. 55, 217 A.2d 578 (1966) and was of the opinion that our holding as to waiver of the right of cross-examination in that case was applicable to the present case. We do not agree. In Hyson, counsel for the protestants did not request the right to cross-examine the applicant's witnesses at the conclusion of their testimony, took no exception and only requested the right to cross-examine the applicant's witnesses at the beginning of the protestants' case. Counsel for the Protestants was advised It hasn't been the practice, whereupon counsel for the protestants proceeded to put on their case. We held that the right to cross-examine had been waived. In our opinion, this aspect of the present case is controlled by our recent decision on December 16, 1966 (approximately five months after Judge Moorman's opinion was filed in the present case on July 27, 1966) in Town of Somerset v. Montgomery County Board of Appeals, supra . In Town of Somerset, as in the case at bar, counsel for the protestants made a timely objection to the denial of the right to cross-examine the witness for the applicants. We held that this sufficiently preserved the question on appeal. We held further that the calling of the witness for the applicants as the witness for the protestants and examining him, was not equivalent to cross-examination so that there was prejudice to the protestants resulting from the denial by the Board of the right to cross-examine. As Judge Oppenheimer, for the Court, aptly stated in Town of Somerset : In the argument before us, counsel for the appellees properly conceded that, under our decisions, the proceedings before the Board were adversary in nature, but they contend that the Board's procedure in allowing the appellants to call the applicants' experts and to examine them as hostile witnesses was the substantial equivalent of the right of cross-examination. We disagree. In the words of Mr. Justice Lamar, in Interstate Commerce Comm'n v. Louisville & N.R.R. Co., 227 U.S. 88, 93 (1913): `[T]he more liberal the practice    the more imperative the obligation to preserve the essential rules of evidence by which rights are asserted or defended    All parties must be fully apprised of the evidence submitted or to be considered, and must be given the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses    In no other way can a party maintain its rights or make its defense.' The right of a party to call hostile witnesses as its own after the testimony of the adverse party has been completed, in our opinion, is not the substantial equivalent of the right to cross-examine immediately after the direct testimony of the witness had been concluded. The techniques of advocacy so essential to our system of justice are largely stultified when resort must be had to such a cumbersome and delayed substitute for immediate and direct cross-examination. (245 Md. at 65-66, 225 A.2d 302-03). As we have concluded that at least three of the appellants were persons aggrieved and, as such, had status to maintain the appeal from the Board to the Circuit Court and from the Circuit Court to us, and further that there was a prejudicial denial of due process of law by the Board's refusal to permit cross-examination of the applicant's witnesses, we will reverse the order of the lower court, remand the case to that court with instructions to remand the case to the Board for a new hearing in which the right of cross-examination will be afforded. We do not find it necessary to express any opinion on the other questions raised by the appellants. Order of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, dated July 27, 1966, dismissing the appellants' petition, reversed and case remanded to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County for remand to the Board of Appeals for a new hearing in accordance with this opinion, costs to be paid by Montgomery County.