SIERRA FOREST LEGACY v. REY
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in SIERRA FOREST LEGACY v. REY, No. 07-16892, an appeal in a civil action against the United States. The panel consisted of REINHARDT, NOONAN, FISHER, Circuit Judges Opinion by Judge Noonan NOONAN, Circuit Judge: Sierra Forest Legacy (Sierra Forest) appeals the decision of the district court denying a preliminary injunction against the United States Forest Service (the USFS or the Forest Service) in a suit challenging its decision to permit logging in accordance with changes made in 2004 by the USFS in the relevant forest plan. Other parties, noted in the caption, have intervened on each side. The Attorney General of California, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., has filed an amicus brief in support of Sierra Forest.
NOONAN, Circuit Judge, concurring: Impaired Impartiality. That judges cannot supplement their salaries, however inadequate they may be, by imposing fines provided by law on those convicted of lawbreaking seems to be a pretty elementary principle of justice. Yet the civilized state of Ohio and the Supreme Court of that state saw nothing to object to in the practice until the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously held it to be a deprivation of due process for a municipal officer to get $12 out of a $100 fine that he had legally imposed. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927). Almost as elementary is the extension of this principle to administrative adjudicators. See Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 579 (1973) (citation omitted). The bias created need not be personal, that is, the adjudicator to be found biased need not be paid off by his decision. The bias can arise from his decision being a way of raising money for the municipality he serves. Ward v. Vill. of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972). Once again, the civilized state of Ohio and its Supreme Court had to be corrected by the United States Supreme Court finding a denial of due process when fines imposed by the mayor were “a substantial portion” of the municipality’s income, although the mayor’s own salary was fixed 13 . . .