John Donnelly Sweeney, et al. v. San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, et al.

John Sweeney personally repaired a low dirt levee surrounding a small island in a marsh. Two California agencies, after brief hearings, responded by issuing three orders imposing penalties and injunctive relief designed to take away everything Mr. Sweeney owns, including his home. The questions presented are:

1. Does an administrative hearing on an enforcement order requiring a defendant to pay millions of dollars comply with due process when the board limits the defendant’s time to try his case to as little as 30 seconds per alleged violation?

2. Does an administrative enforcement hearing comply with due process when the agency allows prosecutors to dictate the outcome, in particular (a) when the proceeding begins with a proposed decision written by the prosecutors, and ends with the adoption of that decision, even though the decision ignores all of the legal and factual arguments made by the defendants; (b) when the prosecutors write the bench memo evaluating the positions of the parties; and (c) when the board’s procedures condone prosecutor sandbagging by allowing prosecutors to present their legal arguments and much of their evidence with their reply brief, and then prohibiting defendants from submitting evidence in response?