Wade R. Reeves v. Alisha M. Reeves, et al.

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that no State may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This Honorable Court has held that orders entered by an adjudicator who lacks lawful authority are constitutionally invalid. Nguyen v. United States, 539 U.S. 69 (2003). It has likewise recognized that “an unconstitutional act is not a law.” Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425, 442 (1886). In this case, orders modifying a final judgment were entered by a commissioner who never acquired the authority to act as a judge under California Constitution Article VI, §21.

1. Whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause is violated when a State upholds and exports across state lines judicial orders entered by a commissioner who never acquired lawful authority to act as a temporary judge under Article VI, §21, where no stipulation appears in the record, and the commissioner later recused himself for bias, and the State declined to decide the Mr. Reeves’ timely challenge to that officer’s authority?

2. Whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses are violated when a State suppresses the only transcript capable of proving or disproving constitutional consent to the adjudicator, denies augmentation of the record, then faults the Mr. Reeves’ for the absence of that transcript, and affirms the judgment based on speculation outside the record?