Opinion ID: 1367503
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Procedural Due Process Challenge

Text: Under the due process clauses of the federal and state constitutions, a procedural due process challenge first requires the existence of either a fundamental right [58] or a constitutionally protected property or liberty interest. We first consider the applicants' putative property interest. The U.S. Supreme Court in Board of Regents v. Roth [59] enunciated the test for ascertaining the existence of a property interest. Roth states that [t]o have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. [60] Moreover, whether one has an entitlement depends on existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law... . [61] Where, as here, the applicants neither advance a statutorily based [62] nor a governmentally derived entitlement, nor do they tender an employment agreement or any other assurances of continual employment, [63] there is no constitutionally protected property interest under the due process clause of either the Oklahoma or the United States Constitution. Though more extensive than the range of constitutionally protected pure property interests, the boundaries of shielded liberty interests are not limitless. [64] Were we concerned with the denial of an initial license, where that denial would preclude both public and private occupational opportunities, perhaps a different analysis would apply. [65] But where, as here, we are concerned merely with one's quest for enrollment as a certified shorthand reporter and but a limited area of one's occupational opportunity is circumscribed  the taking of depositions [66]  no deprivation of a constitutional dimension is implicated. Moreover, stenomask reporters, while not given the same statutory preference as CSR and LSR reporters for employment by the courts, are still eligible for appointment when no certified or licensed court reporter is available. [67]