Tumey v. Ohio

Tumey v.
Ohio
273 US 510 | March 7, 1927
Facts:
Tumey was arrested at White Oak, and was brought before Mayor Pugh, of the village of North College Hill,
charged with unlawfully possessing intoxicating liquor. He moved for his dismissal because of the
disqualification of the mayor to try him under the 14th Amendment. The mayor denied the motion,
proceeded to the trial, convicted Tumey of unlawfully possessing intoxicating liquor within Hamilton county
as charged, fined him $100, and ordered that he be imprisoned until the fine and costs were paid. Tumey
obtained a bill of exceptions and carried the case on error to the court of common pleas of Hamilton county.
That court heard the case and reversed the judgment, on the ground that the mayor was disqualified as
claimed. The state sought review by the Court of Appeals of the First Appellate District of Ohio, which
reversed the common pleas and affirmed the judgment of the mayor. On 4 May 1926, the state Supreme
Court refused Tumey's application to require the Court of Appeals to certify its record in the case. Tumey
then filed a petition in error in that court as of right, asking that the judgment of the mayor's court and of the
appellate court be reversed on constitutional grounds. On 11 May 1926, the Supreme Court adjudged that
the petition be dismissed for the reason that no debatable constitutional question was involved in the cause.
The judgment was then brought to the US Supreme Court upon a writ of error allowed by the Chief Justice
of the state Supreme Court, to which it was rightly directed.
Issue:
Whether the pecuniary interest of the Mayor and his village, and the system of courts in prosecuting
violations of the Prohibition Act, renders the mayor disqualified from hearing the case.
Held: All questions of judicial qualification may not involve constitutional validity. Thus, matters of kinship,
personal bias, state policy, remoteness of interest would seem generally to be matters merely of legislative
discretion. But it certainly violates the 14th Amendment and deprives a defendant in a criminal case of due
process of law to subject his liberty or property to the judgment of a court, the judge of which has a direct,
personal, substantial pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against him in his case. Herein, the mayor
has authority, which he exercised in the case, to order that the person sentenced to pay a fine shall remain
in prison until the fine and costs are paid. The mayor thus has a direct personal pecuniary interest in
convicting the defendant who came before him for trial, in the $12 of costs imposed in his behalf, which he
would not have received if the defendant had been acquitted. This was not exceptional but was the result
of the normal operation of the law and the ordinance. The system by which an inferior judge is paid for his
service only when he convicts the defendant has not become so embedded by custom in the general
practice, either at common law or in this country, that it can be regarded as due process of law, unless the
costs usually imposed are so small that they may be properly ignored as within the maxim "de minimis non
curat lex." The Court cannot regard the prospect of receipt or loss of such an emolument in each case as
a minute, remote, trifling, or insignificant interest. It is certainly not fair to each defendant brought before
the mayor for the careful and judicial consideration of his guilt or innocence that the prospect of such a
prospective loss by the mayor should weigh against his acquittal. But the pecuniary interest of the mayor
in the result of his judgment is not the only reason for holding that due process of law is denied to the
defendant here. The statutes were drawn to stimulate small municipalities, in the country part of counties
in which there are large cities, to organize and maintain courts to try persons accused of violations of the
Prohibition Act everywhere in the county. The inducement is offered of dividing between the state and the
village the large fines provided by the law for its violations. The trial is to be had before a mayor without a
jury, without opportunity for retrial, and with a review confined to questions of law presented by a bill of
exceptions, with no opportunity by the reviewing court to set aside the judgment on the weighing of
evidence, unless it should appear to be so manifestly against the evidence as to indicate mistake, bias, or
willful disregard of duty by the trial court. Thus, no matter what the evidence was against him, the defendant
had the right to have an impartial judge. He seasonably raised the objection, and was entitled to halt the
trial because of the disqualification of the judge, which existed both because of his direct pecuniary interest
in the outcome, and because of his official motive to convict and to graduate the fine to help the financial
needs of the village. There were thus presented at the outset both features of the disqualification. The
judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings not
inconsistent with the present opinion.

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