The due process clause appears in the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. The primary objective of this element of the United States constitutional framework is to protect the people from arbitrariness of the state in administration of its law enforcement functions. Yet, before the due process system took it present form, this concept underwent a series of evolutionary permutations, before the Supreme Court of the United States developed contemporary boundaries thereof. This essay investigates major historical milestones of its development.
The first appearance of the due process appeared in Magna Carta, where the lawmakers expressly states that ‘no free man can be imprisoned or seizedexcept by the lawful judgment’. The newly –born United States added this clause to the Constitution in 1788. The state of New York was the only one to advocate the inclusion of this provision into the supreme law of the country. James Madison drafted the text, and it was him, who proposed to recognize the incidence of rights, protected by the due process in an non-exhaustive way.
Today, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution restrict the power of the federal and state authorities to deprive anyone of life and liberty without the due process. In a landmark case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 US 394 (1886) the Supreme court recognized that the concept of due process encompasses legal entities as well.
Another fundamental development of the due process clause evolution took place with United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938) ruling, when the court recognized that the due process rights are applicable both to the matters of procedural and substantive law of the United States.
Nowadays, the principle of due process underpins the very systems of civil litigation and criminal justice of the country. It is the most frequently invoked provisions of the USA Constitution used by the defense counsels to prove state arbitrariness in court proceedings.
Books Cited
Broyles D, Criminal Law in the USA, Alphen Aan Den Rijn. The Netherlands, Law & Business (2011)
McAlinn G, Rosen D., & Stern, An introduction to American law at 205, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press (2010)
Cases Cited
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 US 394 (1886)
United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938)
