Court Opinion

ID: 9582688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:30:20.803895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:14.588613
License: Public Domain

CARDINE, Justice,
dissenting.
This must indeed have been a strange administrative agency hearing. There was a prosecutor from the attorney general’s office, a hearing officer from the attorney general’s office, a presiding officer from the commission, and the commission which was the fact finding and decision-making body. One wonders how the hearing officer and the presiding officer functioned— where did they sit, who ruled on evidentia-ry and testimonial questions and on procedure.
The hearing, likened to a jury trial, was that the prosecutor was an attorney general; the presiding judge was an attorney general; the jury was the commission. The essence of the court’s decision is that as long as the members of the commission do not also come from the office of the attorney general, the hearing satisfies due process and all other constitutional guarantees to a fair hearing. With this I cannot agree.
I discern the issue to be not whether there was a waiver or whether the presiding officer and the commission were impartial, but whether both the prosecutor and hearing officer can be the same person, i.e., from the same state agency. I would hold they cannot be the same. I do not believe appellant must appear at a hearing before an officer who is not authorized to conduct the hearing, nor must he establish the bias or prejudice of an officer not allowed to conduct the hearing. Had appellant appeared at the hearing, he would have established no more than what is now in the record before us — that is, that the attorney general acted both as prosecutor and hearing officer (at least quasi-judge). Had appellant appeared at the hearing and been unable to show that the hearing officer was partial, biased, or prejudiced, I still would not allow a hearing in which the attorney general acted as both prosecutor and judge. This for the same reason that we do not allow the prosecutor and judge in our court system to be the same person or even from the sanie branch of government. Thus, the prosecutor is in the executive branch and the judge in the judicial branch.
My writing here does not portend much for the future of law since, as the court points out, the establishment of the office of independent hearing examiner will avoid this problem arising in the future. However, I felt it necessary to express my views which differ from those of the court as stated in the court’s opinion. I, therefore, dissent.