Due Process of Law

A fundamental, constitutional guarantee that all legal proceedings will be fair and that one will be given notice of the proceedings and an opportunity to be heard before the government acts to take away one's life, liberty, or property. Also, a constitutional guarantee that a law shall not be unreasonable, ARBITRARY, or capricious.

The constitutional guarantee of due process of law, found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, prohibits all levels of government from arbitrarily or unfairly depriving individuals of their basic constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. The DUE PROCESS CLAUSE of the FIFTH AMENDMENT, ratified in 1791, asserts that no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." This amendment restricts the powers of the federal government and applies only to actions by it. The Due Process Clause of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, ratified in 1868, declares,"[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" (§ 1). This clause limits the powers of the states, rather than those of the federal government.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has also been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the twentieth century to incorporate protections of the BILL OF RIGHTS, so that those protections apply to the states as well as to the federal government. Thus, the Due Process Clause serves as the means whereby the Bill of Rights has become binding on state governments as well as on the federal government.

The concept of due process originated in English COMMON LAW. The rule that individuals shall not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without notice and an opportunity to defend themselves predates written constitutions and was widely accepted in England. The MAGNA CHARTA, an agreement signed in 1215 that defined the rights of English subjects against the king, is an early example of a constitutional guarantee of due process. That document includes a clause that declares, "No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned … except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land" (ch. 39). This concept of the law of the land was later transformed into the phrase "due process of law." By the seventeenth century, England's North American colonies were using the phrase "due process of law" in their statutes.

The application of constitutional due process is traditionally divided into the two categories of SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS and procedural due process. These categories are derived from a distinction that is made between two types of law. SUBSTANTIVE LAW creates, defines, and regulates rights, whereas procedural law enforces those rights or seeks redress for their violation. Thus, in the United States, substantive due process is concerned with such issues as FREEDOM OF SPEECH and privacy, whereas procedural due process is concerned with provisions such as the right to adequate notice of a lawsuit, the right to be present during testimony, and the right to an attorney.