Willis Lansing Ganger v. C. C. Peyton, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellant(two Cases)

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that due process was violated when a part-time Commonwealth Attorney had a conflict of interest by prosecuting a defendant for assault while representing the defendant’s wife in a divorce action
• where constitutional deficiency of conviction arises from conflicting roles of private attorney and prosecutor, harmless error analysis inappropriate
• state prosecuting attorney represented defendant’s wife in a pending divorce action based upon the same assault
• “The prosecuting attorney is an officer of the court, holding a quasi judicial position[; her] primary responsibility is essentially judicial — the prosecution of the guilty and the protection of the innocent”
• conviction violated fundamental fairness assured by due process clause when part-time commonwealth attorney suffered impermissible conflict of interest by prosecuting defendant for criminal assault while simultaneously representing defendant's wife in divorce action
• violation of due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).