Court Opinion

ID: 9569888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:18:20.733919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:12.927553
License: Public Domain

ELLETT, Justice
(concurring and commenting on dissenting opinion).
I concur with the main opinion, but wish to comment on some statements in the dissenting opinion filed herein.
The author of the dissenting opinion makes the same mistake the federal courts made in failing to understand the meaning of the phrase due process of law.
Due process of law has been defined since the days of Lord Coke, who considered it as equivalent to the phrase “law of the land” (used in Magna Carta), and is said by him to denote indictment or presentment of good and lawful men.1
Mr. Webster’s explanation in his argument in the Dartmouth College case2 is classical:
By the law of the land is most clearly intended the general law; a law, which hears before it condemns; which proceeds upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after trial. The meaning is, that every citizen shall hold his life, liberty, property, and immunities, under the protection of the general rules which govern society.
Judge Cooley (Const.Lim. 441) as quoted in Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, says:
Due process of law in each particular case means such an exercise of the powers of the government as the settled maxims of law permit and sanction, and under such safeguards for the protection of the individual 'rights as those maxims prescribe for the class of cases to which the one in question belongs.
Miller Constitution, page 664 says:
Law, in its regular course of administration, through the courts of law, is due process of law, and, when it is secured by the law of the State, the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment are satisfied. Due process of law, within the meaning of that amendment, is secured, if the laws operate on all alike, and do not subject the individual to an arbitrary exercise of the powers of government.
Thé dissenting opinion asserts that “The Fourteenth Amendment is a part of the Constitution of the United States.” While this same assertion has been made by the United States Supreme Court, that court has never held that the amendment was legally adopted. I cannot believe that any *942court, in full possession of its faculties, could honestly hold that the amendment was properly approved and adopted.3
But even if it be assumed that Congress, by joint resolution, could compel the then Secretary of State to declare that the amendment had been approved by three fourths of the states of the Union, still there is no question in this case of lack of due process of law. The defendants were tried in a court of competent jurisdiction under rules of state law which applied to all alike. They were given notice of the charge against them and had a fair trial wherein they were afforded the rights to counsel, to be confronted by the witnesses, to testify and to give evidence in their own behalf.
In the case of Davidson v. New Orleans 4 it was stated:
But however this may be, or under whatever other clause of the Federal Constitution we may review the case, it is not possible to hold that a party has, without due process of law, been deprived of his property, when, as regards the issue affecting it, he has, by the laws of the State, a fair trial in a court of justice, according to the modes of proceeding applicable to such a case. This was clearly stated by this court, speaking by the Chief Justice, in Kennard v. Morgan (92 U.S. 480, 23 L.Ed. 478), and, in substance, repeated at the present term, in McMillan v. Anderson (95 id. 37) [23 L.Ed. 335], [Emphasis added.]
In Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, at 535, 4 S.Ct. 111, at 120, 28 L.Ed. 232 (1884), it was held:
Due process of law in the latter [Fifth Amendment] refers to that law of the land which derives its authority from the legislative powers conferred upon congress by the constitution of the United States, exercised within the limits therein prescribed, and interpreted according to the principles of the common law. In the fourteenth amendment, by parity of reason, it refers to that law of the land in each state which derives its authority from the inherent and reserved powers of the state, exerted within the limits of those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions, and the greatest security for which resides in the right of the people to make their own laws, and alter them at their pleasure.
In Missouri v. Lewis 5 it was held:
The Fourteenth Amendment does not profess to secure to all persons in the United States the benefit of the same laws and the same remedies. Great diversities in these respects may exist in two States separated only by an imaginary line.
The term due process of law does not mean freedom of speech; the right to speedy trial, and the other rights protected from the Federal entity by the first eight amendments to the Constitution. If due process of law did mean that the Federal entity could not abrogate those rights, then it was not necessary to enumerate them, for the Fifth Amendment clearly states: “No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; . . .”
The Fourteenth Amendment uses the similar language: “. . . nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; .” If it could be held that the Fourteenth Amendment was validly adopted, then it would only place the burden upon the states to afford that due process of law which the Fifth Amendment imposes upon the Federal entity, and that is something wholly apart from the particular *943rights mentioned in the first eight amendments.
Under no stretch of the imagination can it be said that the Federal courts can impose new laws or change the old ones under the guise of due process of law.6
There has been no denial of due process of law in this case. The defendants have had a fair trial under a statute which is clear and unambiguous. The judgment of conviction should be affirmed.

. Co.2d Inst. 50.

. 4 Wheat. 518, 581, 4 L.Ed. 629.

. See Dyett v. Turner, 20 Utah 2d 403, 439 P.2d 266 (1967).

. 96 U.S. 97, 105, 24 L.Ed. 616 (1877).

.101 U.S. 22, at 31, 25 L.Ed. 989 (1879).

. Save by the spurious and false statements of the Federal Supreme Court itself.