Due process means procedural fairness shaped by context rather than fixed content
Evidence
The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution guarantee that neither the federal government nor the state governments may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Nevertheless, exactly what process is “due” at trial, and what procedures are constitutional, is difficult to determine. Justice Felix Frankfurter described the problem: … “Due Process,” unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place, and circumstances. Expressing as it does in its ultimate analysis respect enforced by law for the feeling of just treatment … [and] representing a profound attitude of fairness between man and man, and more particularly between the individual and government, due process is compounded of history, reason, the past course of decisions, and stout confidence in the strength of the democratic faith that we profess. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 806
Categorization
- DEFINE: Core definition of due process for the course’s treatment of procedural fairness in trials.
- XREF: connects to: No single legislative intent exists because enactments emerge from group deliberation — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1228; Due process has content that shifts with time, place, and circumstance; Procedural norms substitute for substantive control when outcomes are hard to specify. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 62 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Due process has content that shifts with time, place, and circumstance
#corroborates(0.95) - Procedural norms substitute for substantive control when outcomes are hard to specify.
#expands(0.75) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 62