This week, Matthias O’Meara and Choice Advisors, LLC filed an appeal with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking restoration of their right to be heard by an independent judge and jury. O’Meara founded Choice Advisors to help charter schools raise money by issuing bonds. The company’s first two clients launched successful bond issuances, and the clients testified that the financings could not have been done without O’Meara. But the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged that these transactions took place before O’Meara and Choice Advisors had completed their registration as municipal-securities advisors. The agency sued them in federal court in California, which ultimately found O’Meara and Choice Advisors at fault. The SEC could have asked the judge to ban O’Meara and Choice Advisors from the municipal-securities industry—even though their clients were more than satisfied and even though the SEC didn’t even allege investor loss. But instead, the SEC decided to take the industry-ban issue in-house. The agency’s enforcement lawyers filed an administrative proceeding, which is called a “follow-on” proceeding because it follows a court’s decision. In this follow-on proceeding, the SEC will decide whether O’Meara and Choice Advisors should be forever barred from the municipal-securities industry—so-called “career death penalties.” This isn’t the first time the Securities and Exchange Commission has violated the Seventh Amendment. The SEC is one of 44 agencies that maintain in-house courts, hearing hundreds of enforcement cases per year. In 2022, the SEC brought 467 enforcement actions and imposed more than $4 billion in penalties, with the average monetary penalty per defendant exceeding $5 million. But the Seventh Amendment says that any controversy exceeding $20 has a constitutional right to a jury trial. Since then, the SEC filed 784 enforcement actions in 2023, 583 in 2024, and 313 in 2025, including stand-alone proceedings and follow-on proceedings, like O’Meara v. SEC. People like Matthias O’Meara have been denied their right to a jury trial, a right intended to ensure judicial fairness and public participation in the pursuit of justice, because of the SEC’s unconstitutional adjudicatory hearings. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy that when an agency, specifically the SEC, seeks civil penalties, the agency ought to provide the defendant a jury trial. Yet the SEC continues to ignore this ruling by passing regulations (legislative), enforcing criminal penalties and fines (executive), and issuing judgments against defendants that some financial professionals for life (judicial). In O’Meara’s case, the SEC forced him and his firm, Choice Advisors, LLC, through a second administrative hearing and sought over $290,000 in fines. But this never should have happened. As the Supreme Court ruled, defendants are entitled to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment—and agencies cannot undermine that right. Quoting from Montesquieu, Alexander Hamilton said that “there is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.” And considering its current practices, the SEC is where liberty goes to die. When one agency exercises the powers of all three branches, there is no check against tyranny. Defendants, like Matthias O’Meara and Choice Advisors, LLC, have no recourse other than standing before an agency tribunal of partial administrative law judges. Absent a jury trial, defendants are at the mercy of judges who receive financial incentives for issuing penalties. And even if defendants could appeal their case to a federal court, they should never be forced before an agency tribunal in the first place—such practices run afoul of the Constitution’s promise of jury trials and due process. The post SEC strikes again, targeting a municipal securities advisor through unconstitutional agency hearings appeared first on Pacific Legal Foundation.