Opinion ID: 2516613
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Today's Exclusion of OTC Bond Forfeitures From Direct Review By the Supreme Court Offends The Equal Protection Guarantee of Federal Fundamental Law and the Anti-Discrimination Component of the State Due Process Clause

Text: ¶ 15 Just as OTC must conform its procedural regime to due process standards, [46] so also its bond forfeitures must comply with the strictures of equal protection. The command for discrimination-free procedural uniformity comes to us from both state- and federal-law sources. Whenever state law does not provide the authority necessary to carry out federal constitutional commands, resort must be had to the U.S. Constitution to accomplish the constitutionally mandated objective. [47] The effect of singling out OTC bond forfeitures for a different procedural treatment from that accorded to other agency and district court forfeitures is no less offensive to the Equal Protection Clause [48] than subjecting prisoners to a different mode of trial (nonjury) for mental-health commitment from that which is accorded other persons. [49] In both instances a valuable and critical procedural device is withheld from a subclass without any rational relation to some characteristic that would make the distinction free from an impermissibly discriminatory impact. [50] ¶ 16 For application of critical procedural safeguards all agency bond forfeitures and those of the district court comprise but a single indivisible class. That class is entitled to direct judicial review of forfeiture orders. This is so because those orders are terminal by nature since they are not subject to collateral attack. OTC's bond sureties cannot be deprived of a right of appeal unless their exclusion bears a rational relationship to some legitimate objective to be attained. [51] No compelling governmental objective would support today's discriminatory exclusion of OTC sureties. In sum, the court's absurdly restrictive construction of 68 O.S.Supp.1998 § 225 creates a constitutionally impermissible dichotomous division of statutory sureties, making OTC sureties a procedurally disadvantaged subclass.