Civil due process[edit]
At a basic level, procedural due process is essentially based on the concept of "fundamental fairness." For example, in 1934, the United States Supreme Court held that due process is violated "if a practice or rule offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental."[15] As construed by the courts, it includes an individual's right to be adequately notified of charges or proceedings, the opportunity to be heard at these proceedings, and that the person or panel making the final decision over the proceedings be impartial in regards to the matter before them.[16]
Or, to put it more simply, where an individual is facing a deprivation of life, liberty, or property, procedural due process mandates that he or she is entitled to adequate notice, a hearing, and a neutral judge.
The Supreme Court has formulated a balancing test to determine the rigor with which the requirements of procedural due process should be applied to a particular deprivation, for the obvious reason that mandating such requirements in the most expansive way for even the most minor deprivations would bring the machinery of government to a halt. The Court set out the test as follows: "[I]dentification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: first, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and, finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail."[17]
Procedural due process has also been an important factor in the development of the law of personal jurisdiction, in the sense that it is inherently unfair for the judicial machinery of a state to take away the property of a person who has no connection to it whatsoever. A significant portion of U.S. constitutional law is therefore directed to what kinds of connections to a state are enough for that state's assertion of jurisdiction over a nonresident to comport with procedural due process.
The requirement of a neutral judge has introduced a constitutional dimension into the question of whether a judge should recuse himself or herself from a case. Specifically, the Supreme Court has ruled that in certain circumstances, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires a judge to recuse himself on account of a potential or actual conflict of interest. For example, on June 8, 2009, in Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co. (2009), the Court ruled that a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia could not participate in a case involving a major donor to his election to that court.[18]
Criminal due process[edit]
In criminal cases, many of these due process protections overlap with procedural protections provided by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees reliable procedures that protect innocent people from being executed, which would be an obvious example of cruel and unusual punishment.[19]
An example for criminal due process rights is the case Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480 (1980). The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires certain procedural protections for state prisoners who may be transferred involuntarily to a state mental hospital for treatment of a mental disease or defect, such protections including written notice of the transfer, an adversary hearing before an independent decisionmaker, written findings, and effective and timely notice of such rights.[20] As established by the district court and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Vitek v. Jones, these due process rights include:[20]
- Written notice to the prisoner that a transfer to a mental hospital is being considered;
- A hearing, sufficiently after the notice to permit the prisoner to prepare, at which disclosure to the prisoner is made of the evidence being relied upon for the transfer and at which an opportunity to be heard in person and to present documentary evidence is given;
- An opportunity at the hearing to present testimony of witnesses by the defense and to confront and cross-examine witnesses called by the state, except upon a finding, not arbitrarily made, of good cause for not permitting such presentation, confrontation, or crossexamination;
- An independent decisionmaker;
- A written statement by the factfinder as to the evidence relied on and the reasons for transferring the inmate;
- Availability of legal counsel, furnished by the state, if the inmate is financially unable to furnish his own (It must be noted however that a majority of Justices rejected this right to state-furnished counsel.[21]); and
- Effective and timely notice of all the foregoing rights.
