cess is to be secured, the laws must
operate alike upon all, and not subject the individual to the arbitrary
exercise of governmental power unrestrained by established principles of
private rights and distributive justice. Where a litigant has the
benefit of a full and fair trial in the State courts, and his rights are
measured, not by laws made to affect him individually, but by general
provisions of law applicable to all those in like condition, he is not
deprived of property without due process of law, even if he can be
regarded as deprived of his property by an adverse result.[679]

Due Process and Judicial Process.--Due process of law does not
always mean a proceeding in court.[680] Proceedings to raise revenue by
levying and collecting taxes are not necessarily judicial, neither are
administrative and executive proceedings, yet their validity is not
thereby impaired.[681] Moreover, the due process clause has been
interpreted as not requiring that the judgment of an expert commission
be supplanted by the independent view of judges based on the conflicting
testimony, prophecies, and impressions of expert witnesses when
judicially reviewing a formula of a State regulatory commission for
limiting daily production in an oil field and for proration among the
several well owners.[682]

Nor does the Fourteenth Amendment prohibit a State from conferring upon
nonjudicial bodies certain functions that may be called judicial, or
from delegating to a court powers that are legislative in nature. For
example, State statutes vesting in a parole board certain judicial
functions,[683] or conferring discretionary power upon administrative
boards to grant or withhold permission to carry on a trade,[684] or
vesting in a probate court authority to appoint park commissioners and
establish park districts[685] are not in conflict with the due process
clause and present no federal question. Whether legislative, executive,
and judicial powers of a State shall be kept altogether distinct and
separate, or whether they should in some particulars be merged is for
the determination of the State.[686]

Jurisdiction

In General.--Jurisdiction may be defined as the power to create
legal interests; but if a State attempts to exercise such power with
respect to persons or things beyond its borders, its action is in
conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment and is void within as well as
without its territorial limits. The foundation of jurisdiction