The Due Process Clause is included in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The clause prohibits the government from depriving a person of their right to liberty or property without due process. This clause has helped the federal and state governments adopt fairness standards to ensure people’s rights are not violated. When the justice system fails to treat a person accused of a crime in a fair manner, this treatment violates the person’s rights to Due Process. To explore this concept, consider the following Due Process Clause definition.
Origin
Proposed in 1788, Fourteenth Amendment ratified to include Due Process in 1868.
The subject of Due Process dates back to 1215 when King John of England issued clause 39 of the Magna Carta. During his rule, King John promised his people that they would not be stripped of their basic human rights. This English rule set the standards for due process in the United States and other countries around the world. James Madison drafted the Due Process Clause in 1788, after New York asked Congress to consider adding “due process language” to the U.S. Constitution. Madison made some changes to the language recommended by New York, and Congress adopted the Bill of Rights as part of the Constitution in 1791. In 1868, the Fourteenth amendment was ratified to include a Due Process Clause.
Substantive Due Process pertains to those rights not listed specifically in the U.S. Constitution, but which are recognized as an important part of an individual’s liberty. Substantive due process is often related to areas such as voting, minorities, and the rights of children. When determining whether the government has violated a person’s substantive due process rights, the judicial system first determines whether the issue at hand was a fundamental right.
Procedural due process protects individuals during governmental proceedings, whether they are civil or criminal. Procedural due process also pertains to parole hearings, governmental benefit hearings, and full criminal trials. The rights afforded in this section include, but are not limited to:
The Due Process Clause protects citizens against laws that are too vague for the average person to understand. If the laws are written in such a manner that an ordinary person cannot determine whether the conduct is expressly prohibited, or that a punishment can be rendered if they carry out the conduct, the court can determine the law to be “void for vagueness.” This prohibition against vague laws ensures that the laws are understandable and that ignorance cannot be used as a defense in criminal offenses.
The Bill of Rights was originally intended to apply only to the federal government, but the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment placed prohibitions on the actions of individual states as well. As time went on, the Supreme Court made a number of rulings that certain state laws or policies violated protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, thus “incorporating” those protections, applying them to all U.S. citizens.