Why procedural rights are important

The right to present evidence, including the right to call witnesses. The right to know opposing evidence. The right to cross-examine adverse witnesses. A decision based exclusively on the evidence presented. Opportunity to be represented by counsel. The due process clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment prohibit the government from unfairly depriving individuals of their basic rights.

The concept of due process originated in English common law, and even the Magna Carta in created an early due process guarantee by declaring no free man could be seized or imprisoned except under the law of the land or by the lawful judgment of peers.

Today, Constitutional due process has been interpreted to provide a great many protections, not just for criminal defendants, but also for the public at large. Procedural due process refers to the process used to try and convict defendants accused of crimes, while substantive due process is a principle allowing courts to prevent government interference with fundamental rights. Procedural due process limits state and federal power by requiring certain procedures to be followed in both criminal and civil matters.

The Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure, the right to a trial by jury, the right to an attorney, and freedom from self-incrimination are all examples of provisions central to procedural due process. It is the guarantee of procedural due process that ensures you will have your day in court if you are arrested and that your trial will be a fair one presided over by a jury of your peers.

See Dusenbery v. United States, U. Thus, in Jones v. And, in Greene v. See also Mennonite Bd. Cohn, U. Velmohos v. Maren Engineering Corp. Shutts, U. Conway, U.

Massachusetts, U. Louisiana, U. The power of a state to determine the limits of the jurisdiction of its courts and the character of the controversies which shall be heard in them and to deny access to its courts is also subject to restrictions imposed by the Contract, Full Faith and Credit, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Constitution.

Angel v. Bullington, U. Glidden Co. Iowa, U. Hanan, U. See also Lindsey v. Snell, U. While this is more generally true in the context of criminal cases, in which the appellate process and post-conviction remedial process have been subject to considerable revision in the treatment of indigents, some requirements have also been imposed in civil cases.

Boddie v. Connecticut, U. Review has, however, been restrained with regard to details. See, e. Thus the Fourteenth Amendment does not constrain the states to accept modern doctrines of equity, or adopt a combined system of law and equity procedure, or dispense with all necessity for form and method in pleading, or give untrammeled liberty to amend pleadings.

Note that the Supreme Court did once grant review to determine whether due process required the states to provide some form of post-conviction remedy to assert federal constitutional violations, a review that was mooted when the state enacted such a process. Case v. Nebraska, U. When a state, however, through its legal system exerts a monopoly over the pacific settlement of private disputes, as with the dissolution of marriage, due process may well impose affirmative obligations on that state.

Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. Nor did the retroactive application of this statutory requirement to actions pending at the time of its adoption violate due process as long as no new liability for expenses incurred before enactment was imposed thereby and the only effect thereof was to stay such proceedings until the security was furnished. See also Little v. McNeal-Edwards Co. Union Guano Co. Piper, U. Gray, U.

See also Bianchi v. Morales, U. Smith, U. Cole, U. Southern Pacific Co. See also Martinez v. Cade, U. Triplett, U. Kansas, U. Consider, however, the possible bearing of Giaccio v. Jackson Vinegar Co.

Nye Schneider Fowler Co. Blincoe, U. McCray, U. Harlan County, U. Arnold, U. Yeldell, U. Haslip, U. See also Honda Motor Co. Oberg, U. Kelco Disposal, Inc. Gore, U. Campbell, U. But see TXO Corp. Alliance Resources, U.

The Court has suggested that awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages would be unlikely to pass scrutiny under due process, and that the greater the compensatory damages, the less this ratio should be. State Farm Mut. Jackson, U. Nelson, U. New York, U. Lawrence Brothers, U. Nor is a former owner who had not been in possession for five years after and fifteen years before said enactment thereby deprived of property without due process.

Department of Labor, U. Holt, U. Donaldson, U. Rowley, U. See also Stewart v. Keyes, U. Dick, U. Bleakly, U. Harry, U. Vance v. Terrazas, U. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co. In the absence of congressional guidance, the Court has determined the evidentiary standard in certain statutory actions.

Nishikawa v. Dulles, U. INS, U. Four Justices dissented, arguing that considered as a whole the statutory scheme comported with due process. Application of the traditional preponderance of the evidence standard is permissible in paternity actions. Rivera v. Minnich, U. But see Michael H.

Gerald D. Alabama, U. Georgia, U. Henderson, U. Ford, U. See also Morrison v. Schlesinger v. Wisconsin, U. Donnan, U. LaFleur, U. Kline, U. Murry, U. Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, U. Vlandis , said Justice Rehnquist for the Court, meant no more than that when a state fixes residency as the qualification it may not deny to one meeting the test of residency the opportunity so to establish it.

Salfi, U. The Court has avoided deciding whether to overrule, retain, or further limit Vlandis. Elkins v. Department of Employment Security, U.

But see Usery v. Boles, U. Sauvinet, 92 U. White, U. Trout, U. North Carolina, U. Brooklyn, U. Louis M. Dow, U. Crenshaw, U. For other recurrences to general due process reasoning, as distinct from reliance on more specific Bill of Rights provisions, see, e. Bryant, U. See also Hicks v. Oklahoma, U. Montana, U. Whorton, U. Kibbe, U. Wilbur, U. Oregon, U. Mississippi, U. See , e. The Court has also rejected an argument that due process requires that criminal prosecutions go forward only on a showing of probable cause.

Albright v. Oliver, U. See also Cole v. Arkansas, U. On prejudicial publicity, see Beck v. Utah, U. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly.

Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warnings. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory applications. City of Rockford, U.

The Flipside, U. Colten v. General Const. Giaccio v. Beckles, U. Lawson, U. City of Jacksonville, U. Goguen, U. Generally, a vague statute that regulates in the area of First Amendment guarantees will be pronounced wholly void.

Winters v. Similar concerns regarding vagrancy laws had been expressed previously. District of Columbia, U. Coates v. City of Cincinnati, U. See Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, U.

City of Columbia, U. Where the conduct in question is at the margins of the meaning of an unclear statute, however, it will be struck down as applied. National Dairy Corp. City of Euclid, U. Pearson v. Probate Court, U. Freed, U. Lanier, U. Franklin, U. Screws v.

The Court have even done so when the statute did not explicitly include such a mens rea requirement. Were it otherwise, the evil would be as great as it is when the law is written in print too fine to read or in a language foreign to the community.

In so concluding, the Court noted that the sentencing system that predated the use of the guidelines gave nearly unfettered discretion to judges in sentencing, and that discretion was never viewed as raising similar concerns.

According to the Court, the only notice that is required regarding criminal sentences is provided to the defendant by the applicable statutory range and the guidelines. Further, the guidelines, which serve to advise courts how to exercise their discretion within the bounds set by Congress, simply do not regulate any conduct that can be arbitrarily enforced against a criminal defendant. Batchelder, U. Russell, U. Kelly, F. Williams, F. Jannotti, F.

Hampton v. In Sherman v. The Hampton plurality thought the Due Process Clause would never be applicable, no matter what conduct government agents engaged in, unless they violated some protected right of the defendant, and that inducement and encouragement could never do that. Justices Powell and Blackmun, on the other hand, U.

The Russell and Hampton dissenters did not clearly differentiate between the supervisory power and due process but seemed to believe that both were implicated. The Court again failed to clarify the basis for the defense in Mathews v.

If the government employed means of persuasion or inducement creating a substantial risk that the person tempted will engage in the conduct, the defense would be available. Sorrells v.

For several years government agents had sent the defendant mailings soliciting his views on pornography and child pornography, and urging him to obtain materials in order to fight censorship and stand up for individual rights. Watkins v. Sowders, U. Brathwaite, U. Biggers, U. Denno, U.

New Hampshire, U. An identification process can be found to be suggestive regardless of police intent. Perry v. The necessity of using a particular procedure depends on the circumstances. See also Stovall v. In Manson v. The rule in due process cases differs from the per se exclusionary rule adopted in the Wade-Gilbert line of cases on denial of the right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment in subject Illinois, U. Ash, U. In a limited class of cases, pretrial identifications have been found to be constitutionally objectionable on a basis other than due process.

See discussion of Assistance of Counsel under Amend. See also Buchalter v. See also Ward v. Village of Monroeville, U. But see Dugan v. Similarly, in Rippo v. LaVoie, U. Bias or prejudice of an appellate judge can also deprive a litigant of due process. Aetna Life Ins. Hayes, U. But see Ungar v. Sarafite, U. Fairness of course requires an absence of actual bias in the trial of cases. But our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness.

Smith v. Phillips, U. See also Remmer v. Virginia, U. Spencer v. For discussion of the requirements of jury impartiality about capital punishment, see discussion under Sixth Amendment, supra. Mangum, U. Dempsey, U. Maxwell, U. Dowd, U. Florida, U. Estes v. Subsequently, however, in part because of improvements in technology which caused much less disruption of the trial process and in part because of the lack of empirical data showing that the mere presence of the broadcast media in the courtroom necessarily has an adverse effect on the process, the Court has held that due process does not altogether preclude the televising of state criminal trials.

Chandler v. The decision was unanimous but Justices Stewart and White concurred on the basis that Estes had established a per se constitutional rule which had to be overruled, id.

Under some circumstances it is a violation of due process and reversible error to fail to instruct the jury that the defendant is entitled to a presumption of innocence, although the burden on the defendant is heavy to show that an erroneous instruction or the failure to give a requested instruction tainted his conviction.

Taylor v. However, an instruction on the presumption of innocence need not be given in every case. Kentucky v. See also Sandstrom v. See also Cupp v. Naughten, U. For other cases applying Sandstrom , see Francis v. Clark, U. McNeil, U. Young, U. The convicted defendant was denied habeas relief, however, because of failure to object at trial.

Holbrook v. Flynn, U. Musladin, U. In Illinois v. Allen, U. See also Davis v. Alaska, U. South Carolina, U. To illustrate, consider again the example of the Appalachian coal field communities. To be sure, affordable access to legal representation and courts is not a panacea that will magically solve the problems facing the rural working class. But it likely would help people going through uncertain economic circumstances feel secure as equal members of society, with greater tools of self-advocacy at their disposal and more insulation from the ebb and flow of forces beyond their control.

This connection between procedure and dignity thus gets to the core of the missing middle problem. When people are unable to access the legal system , believe that the system has lost its impartiality , or find that their votes do not matter , they suffer direct dignitary harms. On top of any substantive rights violations they experience, the failure to recognize their procedural rights literally communicates that they are less valuable as people than other members of society.

Thus, the denial of procedural rights for African-Americans served as a crucial feature of the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the United States. Furthermore, the central role and importance of state institutions in ensuring compliance with human rights protections enhances the impact of procedural rights or the lack thereof. Although enumerated at an international level, most of the work implementing and enforcing human rights occurs at the national level.

Indeed, the language of the enumerated international rights is purposefully broad in order to respect the differing values various societies and cultures will bring to the project of implementation. The United States, for example, protects free expression more than privacy , while Europe gives greater weight to privacy and less to free expression.

The international system specifically identifies national fora as the level at which tensions between rights can be debated and resolved. This is a critical point. Human rights adhere to people by virtue of their being people.

Regardless of sovereignty, politics, or government considerations, individuals have these rights as such. No individual or group of individuals has the right to alter, reduce, or eliminate the human rights of another. Society, therefore, may not legitimately make decisions impacting the human rights of its members without their participation in the decision-making process.