Due Process
Due Process
The phrase ‘due process’ symbolizes society's essential ideas of legal equality. The due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid government from taking a person's "life, liberty or property without due process of law" (United States Constitution , 2013). This proposes a limitation which associates to procedures.
Many due process cases involve the question of fair procedures or procedural due process. The question of legal fairness may be associated not only to procedures, but to legislation that illegally affects people. As a result, courts in the U.S. have interpreted the verbiage of these Amendments as a limitation on substantive powers of legislatures to pass laws affecting various aspects of life. When applying what is called substantive due process, courts look at whether a law or government action unreasonably infringes on a fundamental liberty.
In a case presented to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the U.S. determined the Fifth Amendment was not completely binding on state governments. As a consequence of that case, neither the Supreme Court nor the federal court exercised much control over the matters of state laws. More importantly, there was little control over the processes by which states administered their laws during America's early years. Huge changes for state governments changed dramatically with the passage of the Civil War Amendments (13, 14, and 15), which were passed to thwart discrimination by states against blacks freed from slavery as a consequence of the Civil War.
The Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause is almost exact to the Fifth Amendment's clause. However, the Fourteenth Amendment was specific in limiting the actions of the state governments. Courts have interpreted these two clauses identically: the Fifth Amendment now limits the power of the federal government and the Fourteenth Amendment limits the power of state (and local) governments.
Procedural Due Process...