North v. Russell
Encyclopedia
North v. Russell, , is a United States Supreme Court case which held that a non-lawyer jurist can constitutionally sit in a jail-carrying criminal case provided that the defendant have an opportunity through an appeal to obtain a second trial before a judge who is a lawyer.
, presided over by a magistrate
, a justice of the peace
or other non-judicial officer, who hears criminal arraignments and tries petty offenses and small civil cases. These courts are sometimes called police courts.
In July 1974, Lonnie North was convicted of a DWI
charge by a police court in Kentucky. The presiding judge, C.B. Russell, was a coal miner with a high school education and without any legal training. Russell later testified that he had not received any training concerning rules of evidence and that he was not familiar with the Kentucky statutes relating to jury trials, with the Kentucky rules of criminal procedure, or with the rights guaranteed to a defendant in a criminal case under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Russell sentenced North to 30 days in jail, a sentence which he was unauthorized to impose. North was also fined $150 and had his drivers' license temporarily revoked. In Kentucky's two-tiered trial system, the first trial is a non-jury trial. If convicted, the defendant may appeal to have a jury trial and must be afforded one. In appearing for the court, North had asked for a jury trial, which, contrary to the applicable statute, was denied him.
North filed a habeas corpus
petition in the district court
, challenging the statutory scheme under which he had been convicted. He argued that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection had been violated because he had been tried and convicted in a court presided over by a judge without legal training. The district court denied relief, as did the Kentucky Court of Appeals
. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court which vacated and remanded to the appeals court on an issue of jurisdiction. The appeals court sustained the federal constitutional issue, and the case was again appealed to the Supreme Court.
Warren Burger wrote the majority opinion. The first claim made by the appellant was that the due process clause requires a law-trained judge in all trials where confinement is a possible penalty, and that this requirement is not affected by the opportunity to obtain a trial de novo
before a lawyer-trained judge. Burger contended that a court with the power to impose this penalty should be subjected to judicial scrutiny. However, the Kentucky arrangement for dealing with less serious offenses had not been shown to disadvantage the defendant any more or less than trials conducted in a court of general jurisdiction in the first instance, as long as the later was always available. Furthermore, Burger pointed to several advantages with the police court system:
This line of reasoning was quoted from Colten v. Kentucky (1972), a prior Supreme Court case dealing with Kentucky's two-tier trial system. In regard to the judge's lack of legal training, Burger concluded in reference to a previous line of cases that the use of non-judicial officers to perform judicial functions was permitted insofar as "independent, neutral and detached judgement" was secured. These concerns outweighed the need for legal training.
The appellant's second claim was that the Kentucky statute violated the equal protection clause as it allowed for non-trained judges to preside in some cities of the state and not in others. This determination depended on the population size of the different cities. In response, Burger noted that all people within a given city and within cities of the same size were treated equally. Moreover, the Kentucky Court of Appeals had articulated the reasons for this classfication scheme, which included varying financial resources of different cities and the power of the state to regulate its internal affairs. Burger cited Missouri v. Lewis (1880), in which the Court held that a state may establish disparate court systems in different cities, as long as all people within the classified area are treated equally. To this end, the Kentucky statute satisfied the constitutional guarantees. The appeals court decision was affirmed.
dissented, joined by Justice Thurgood Marshall
. Stewart began by recounting the circumstances of North's conviction, and the constitutional issues it raised:
Stewart continued by tracing the development of the right to counsel
, which evolved from being afforded only in capital cases (Powell v. Alabama
, 1932), to defendants charged with a felony (Gideon v. Wainwright
, 1963), and finally also in trials for misdemeanors ( Argersinger v. Hamlin, 1972). This evolution "firmly established that a person who has not been accorded the constitutional right to the assistance of counsel cannot be sentenced to even one day of imprisonment." But the integrity of the constitutional right, Stewart said, equally depended on the judge's competence. If the judge was ignorant of the law, the quality of counsel would be made moot:
Stewart noted that Russell had denied North his request of a trial by jury, despite it being clearly afforded to him by Kentucky law. Moreover, the sentence imposed on North was unauthorized by the statute. Even if no proof of incompetence could be demonstrated, Stewart contended, a sentence of imprisonment imposed by a lay judge was on its face violative of the due process clause:
I think that Any trial before a lay judge that results in the defendant's imprisonment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has never required a showing of specific or individualized prejudice when it was the procedure itself that violated due process of law. "(A)t times a procedure employed by the State involves such a probability that prejudice will result that it is deemed inherently lacking in due process."
Stewart further addressed the issue of a trial de novo as a remedy of previous mistakes. He cited Ward v. Village of Monroeville (1972), in which the Court held that "the State's trial court procedure (cannot) be deemed constitutionally acceptable simply because the State eventually offers a defendant an impartial adjudication. Petitioner is entitled to a neutral and detached judge in the first instance." This case had been distinguished in the majority opinion as reflecting the need for neutral judgement on part of the judge as opposed to legal training. Stewart argued that this reasoning was untenable: "(...) surely there can be no meaningful constitutional difference between a trial that is fundamentally unfair because of the judge's possible bias, and one that is fundamentally unfair because of the judge's ignorance of the law."
Stewart criticized Burger's citing of the Colten case on the point that the defendant, to vindicate his right of a trial de novo, only had to plead guilty. This, Stewart said, assumed that the defendant had been informed of this right, would nonetheless incur the temporal and financial burden of multiple court appearances, and would "turn what should be a solemn court proceeding (...) into nothing more than a sham." Also, it would interfere with the conscience of the innocent defendant:
In conclusion, Stewart cited a passage from the Magna Carta
:
. Edward Soto, in an essay for the Columbia Human Rights Law Review
, argued that both decisions "will have far reaching effects on criminal procedure in the United States since they serve to approve many two-tier systems used in other states, several of which have recently rejected similar claims regarding their own procedures."
Background
In the American judicial system, many states have courts of limited jurisdictionLimited jurisdiction
Limited jurisdiction, or special jurisdiction, is the courts' jurisdiction only on certain types of cases such as bankruptcy, family matters, etc....
, presided over by a magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
, a justice of the peace
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
or other non-judicial officer, who hears criminal arraignments and tries petty offenses and small civil cases. These courts are sometimes called police courts.
In July 1974, Lonnie North was convicted of a DWI
DWI
DWI is an acronym which means:* Driving while intoxicated, see Driving under the influence* Driving while impaired* Danish West Indies* Diffusion-weighted imaging, a technique used in magnetic resonance imaging* Drinking Water Inspectorate...
charge by a police court in Kentucky. The presiding judge, C.B. Russell, was a coal miner with a high school education and without any legal training. Russell later testified that he had not received any training concerning rules of evidence and that he was not familiar with the Kentucky statutes relating to jury trials, with the Kentucky rules of criminal procedure, or with the rights guaranteed to a defendant in a criminal case under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Russell sentenced North to 30 days in jail, a sentence which he was unauthorized to impose. North was also fined $150 and had his drivers' license temporarily revoked. In Kentucky's two-tiered trial system, the first trial is a non-jury trial. If convicted, the defendant may appeal to have a jury trial and must be afforded one. In appearing for the court, North had asked for a jury trial, which, contrary to the applicable statute, was denied him.
North filed a habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
petition in the district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
, challenging the statutory scheme under which he had been convicted. He argued that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection had been violated because he had been tried and convicted in a court presided over by a judge without legal training. The district court denied relief, as did the Kentucky Court of Appeals
Kentucky Court of Appeals
The Kentucky Court of Appeals is the lower of Kentucky's two appellate courts, under the Kentucky Supreme Court. Prior to a 1975 amendment to the Kentucky Constitution the Kentucky Court of Appeals was the only appellate court in Kentucky....
. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court which vacated and remanded to the appeals court on an issue of jurisdiction. The appeals court sustained the federal constitutional issue, and the case was again appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court's decision
In a 6-2 decision, the Court upheld the statute as constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief JusticeChief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
Warren Burger wrote the majority opinion. The first claim made by the appellant was that the due process clause requires a law-trained judge in all trials where confinement is a possible penalty, and that this requirement is not affected by the opportunity to obtain a trial de novo
Trial de novo
In law, the expression trial de novo means a "new trial" by a different tribunal...
before a lawyer-trained judge. Burger contended that a court with the power to impose this penalty should be subjected to judicial scrutiny. However, the Kentucky arrangement for dealing with less serious offenses had not been shown to disadvantage the defendant any more or less than trials conducted in a court of general jurisdiction in the first instance, as long as the later was always available. Furthermore, Burger pointed to several advantages with the police court system:
- Proceedings in the inferior courts are simple and speedy, and, if the results in Colten's case are any evidence, the penalty is not characteristically severe. Such proceedings offer a defendant the opportunity to learn about the prosecution's case and, if he chooses, he need not reveal his own. He may also plead guilty without a trial and promptly secure a De novo Trial in a court of general criminal jurisdiction.
This line of reasoning was quoted from Colten v. Kentucky (1972), a prior Supreme Court case dealing with Kentucky's two-tier trial system. In regard to the judge's lack of legal training, Burger concluded in reference to a previous line of cases that the use of non-judicial officers to perform judicial functions was permitted insofar as "independent, neutral and detached judgement" was secured. These concerns outweighed the need for legal training.
The appellant's second claim was that the Kentucky statute violated the equal protection clause as it allowed for non-trained judges to preside in some cities of the state and not in others. This determination depended on the population size of the different cities. In response, Burger noted that all people within a given city and within cities of the same size were treated equally. Moreover, the Kentucky Court of Appeals had articulated the reasons for this classfication scheme, which included varying financial resources of different cities and the power of the state to regulate its internal affairs. Burger cited Missouri v. Lewis (1880), in which the Court held that a state may establish disparate court systems in different cities, as long as all people within the classified area are treated equally. To this end, the Kentucky statute satisfied the constitutional guarantees. The appeals court decision was affirmed.
Concurrence
Justice William J. Brennan concurred in the result, but did not write separately.Dissent
Justice Potter StewartPotter Stewart
Potter Stewart was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his tenure, he made, among other areas, major contributions to criminal justice reform, civil rights, access to the courts, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.-Education:Stewart was born in Jackson, Michigan,...
dissented, joined by Justice Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...
. Stewart began by recounting the circumstances of North's conviction, and the constitutional issues it raised:
- Lonnie North was haled into a Kentucky criminal court and there tried, convicted, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment by Judge C. B. Russell. Judge Russell is a coal miner without any legal training or education whatever. I believe that a trial before such a judge that results in the imprisonment of the defendant is constitutionally intolerable. It deprives the accused of his right to the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, and deprives him as well of due process of law.
Stewart continued by tracing the development of the right to counsel
Right to counsel
Right to counsel is currently generally regarded as a constituent of the right to a fair trial, allowing for the defendant to be assisted by counsel , and if he cannot afford his own lawyer, requiring that the government should appoint one for him/her, or pay his/her legal expenses...
, which evolved from being afforded only in capital cases (Powell v. Alabama
Powell v. Alabama
Powell v. Alabama was a United States Supreme Court decision which determined that in a capital trial, the defendant must be given access to counsel upon his or her own request as part of due process.-Background of the case:...
, 1932), to defendants charged with a felony (Gideon v. Wainwright
Gideon v. Wainwright
Gideon v. Wainwright, , is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In the case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to afford their own...
, 1963), and finally also in trials for misdemeanors ( Argersinger v. Hamlin, 1972). This evolution "firmly established that a person who has not been accorded the constitutional right to the assistance of counsel cannot be sentenced to even one day of imprisonment." But the integrity of the constitutional right, Stewart said, equally depended on the judge's competence. If the judge was ignorant of the law, the quality of counsel would be made moot:
- In a trial before such a judge, the constitutional right to the assistance of counsel thus becomes a hollow mockery "a teasing illusion like a munificent bequest in a pauper's will."
Stewart noted that Russell had denied North his request of a trial by jury, despite it being clearly afforded to him by Kentucky law. Moreover, the sentence imposed on North was unauthorized by the statute. Even if no proof of incompetence could be demonstrated, Stewart contended, a sentence of imprisonment imposed by a lay judge was on its face violative of the due process clause:
I think that Any trial before a lay judge that results in the defendant's imprisonment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has never required a showing of specific or individualized prejudice when it was the procedure itself that violated due process of law. "(A)t times a procedure employed by the State involves such a probability that prejudice will result that it is deemed inherently lacking in due process."
Stewart further addressed the issue of a trial de novo as a remedy of previous mistakes. He cited Ward v. Village of Monroeville (1972), in which the Court held that "the State's trial court procedure (cannot) be deemed constitutionally acceptable simply because the State eventually offers a defendant an impartial adjudication. Petitioner is entitled to a neutral and detached judge in the first instance." This case had been distinguished in the majority opinion as reflecting the need for neutral judgement on part of the judge as opposed to legal training. Stewart argued that this reasoning was untenable: "(...) surely there can be no meaningful constitutional difference between a trial that is fundamentally unfair because of the judge's possible bias, and one that is fundamentally unfair because of the judge's ignorance of the law."
Stewart criticized Burger's citing of the Colten case on the point that the defendant, to vindicate his right of a trial de novo, only had to plead guilty. This, Stewart said, assumed that the defendant had been informed of this right, would nonetheless incur the temporal and financial burden of multiple court appearances, and would "turn what should be a solemn court proceeding (...) into nothing more than a sham." Also, it would interfere with the conscience of the innocent defendant:
- In short, I cannot accept the suggestion that, as a prerequisite to a constitutionally fair trial, a defendant must stand up in open court and inform a judge that he is guilty when in fact he believes that he is not.
In conclusion, Stewart cited a passage from the Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
:
- At Runnymede in 1215 King John pledged to his barons that he would "not make any Justiciaries, Constables, Sheriffs, or Bailiffs, excepting of such as knows the laws of land . . . ." (...) Today, more than 750 years later, the Court leaves that promise unkept.
Subsequent developments
Two days after announcing the decision in North v. Russell, the Court upheld a similar Massachusetts trial system in Ludwig v. MassachusettsLudwig v. Massachusetts
Ludwig v. Massachusetts, , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Massachusetts two-tier court system did not deprive Ludwig of his U.S. Const., Amend. XIV right to a jury trial and did not violate the double jeopardy clause of the U.S. Const., Amend...
. Edward Soto, in an essay for the Columbia Human Rights Law Review
Columbia Human Rights Law Review
The Columbia Human Rights Law Review is a law review established in 1967 focusing on human rights issues. Produced by students of the Columbia University School of Law, it is "dedicated to the analysis and discussion of human rights and civil liberties under both domestic and international law."The...
, argued that both decisions "will have far reaching effects on criminal procedure in the United States since they serve to approve many two-tier systems used in other states, several of which have recently rejected similar claims regarding their own procedures."