Hearings

SIGNIFICANCE: Hearings often play important roles in deciding procedural and substantive issues before legal actions go to trial.

Hearings are formal or quasi-formal proceedings used by courts, legislatures, administrative agencies, and government departments to address specific issues. Judicial hearings normally focus an individual issues, or groups of issues, arising from larger cases. Hearings may be used as procedural tools to guarantee that due process rights are being protected. Examples of common hearings held in criminal cases include arraignments, which are used to enter initial pleas, review bail, and protect due process rights; preliminary hearings, in which probable cause in felony cases is examined; and motion hearings, in which procedural and substantive legal issues are considered.

As a rule, hearings before a court require the attendance of all parties to the cases. In most hearings, every party has a right to be heard regarding the issues at hand. An ex parte hearing is one in which only one party to a case is present. Such hearings are generally reserved to matters of an emergency nature, when notice and opportunity to be heard cannot reasonably be given to all parties.

Some hearings, such as preliminary hearings, may also require the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the presentation of evidence. Other hearings focus on legal questions only and typically provide the parties or their attorneys opportunities to address the courts on specific issues. In the most formal hearings, court reporters or other court officers preserve records of the matters discussed. In less formal hearings, no recording is done, and the only record is the order entered by the judge following the hearing.

In criminal matters, the most common hearings are preliminary hearings, in which questions of probable cause are examined by courts. Other hearing types include hearings on motions, evidence, and arraignment. Hearings in camera are held in the privacy of judges’ chambers or anterooms, outside the normal confines of courtrooms.

Hearings are also used by legislative bodies to make inquiries into factual or legal issues of interest to the legislature. Such hearings are commonly conducted by committees or subcommittees of the entire legislature. In many instances, the legislative bodies or committees may possess the power of subpoena to compel witnesses to appear and testify. Such power affords legislative bodies the authority to investigate, normally a government action reserved to the executive branch, and to make inquiries into matters affecting legislation. However, Congress does not have much power to enforce subpoenas itself and relies on the executive or judicial branch.

Government administrative agencies also use hearings as quasi-judicial exercises of their power. Such agencies are generally afforded this power through the legislation that creates them, and the purposes of such hearings are to take enforcement, corrective, or investigative action into matters arising under the agencies’ authority. A common example can be found in many cases arising from charges of driving under the influence or drunk driving. The criminal charges are handled by the courts, but the question of how such crimes affect the offenders’ driving privileges is normally handled through the administrative procedures of state driver’s license bureaus.

Bibliography

Acker, J. R., and D. C. Brody. Criminal Procedure: A Contemporary Perspective. 2d ed. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett, 2004.

"Hearing." Cornell Law School, Feb. 2022, www.law.cornell.edu/wex/hearing. Accessed 5 July 2024.

LaFave, Wayne R., Jerold H. Israel, and Nancy J. King. Criminal Procedure. 4th ed. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West, 2004.

LeBlanc, Paul. "Here's What Happens If a Congressional Subpoena Is Ignored (and What It Means for the January 6 Committee)." CNN, 7 Oct. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/subpoena-january-6-select-committee-explainer/index.html. Accessed 5 July 2024.