James Marshall Shoemaker, III v. Leslie R. Moore, Esq., as Personal Representative and Trustee of the Estate of James Marshall Shoemaker, Jr., et al.

Whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process is violated when a judge knowingly rules on the merits of a case while maintaining an undisclosed, ongoing financial partnership with opposing counsel’s law firm, and then refuses to vacate those rulings after recusal.

Whether a State may constitutionally enforce a rigid jurisdictional deadline that bars any appellate review of a structural due-process violation when the litigant’s attorney becomes unable to practice law during the appeal window, fails to notify the litigant of the judgment or deadline, and fails to file the appeal he had promised to file.

Whether recusal without vacatur satisfies due process when a judge’s disqualifying conflict existed at the time of ruling, the conflicted judgment remains operative, and successor courts rely on that judgment in subsequent litigation.