Re: due process

"Due process of law" is a concept ,therefore, has no birth date. Obviously, it pre-dates the Bill of Rights since that document uses the term as one that is fairly clear, so it must have been in existence for some time.

Re: due process

It began last Thursday at about 3 PM. No, just kidding. As Mr. Shers points out, the concept of due process is enshrined in our Bill of Rights, and was, therefore, a known concept in English common law. At that time, and today, it was understood as 1) notice, and 2) an opportunity to be heard. It is what we refer to as procedural due process.

Then, somewhere along Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court looked in the shadows and penumbras and cracks and crevices of the Constitution, tossed in some tea leaves, bat blood, and animal bones and invented this thing called "substantive due process," a phrase which does not exist in our Constitution, but which apparently gives a woman and her doctor the right to kill an unborn child, and also guarantees a whole bunch of other rights on which the Constitution is silent (from sodomy to social security).