Due Process For Dummies

If you’re anything like me, these past weeks, your feed has been full of news about the LA riots. You’ve been scrolling past images of rippling flags and megaphones, spectating live streams of crowds chanting at stoic officers in the streets. You’ve seen your share of linked hands, of shattered windshields, and of tear-strewn expressions. You’ve probably also noticed the signs. They might be made of cardboard, wrinkling under white-knuckled hands, or they might be flimsy paper and string hung around a kid’s neck. Some will have bold, witty words. Others are only blunt scribbles. But if you’re anything like me, if you’re drawn to what you don’t understand, some phrases on these signs might’ve stuck out.One in particular.

“Due Process.” 

What is Due Process? One might ask a trusted adult, a library, or a search engine. I went to the latter, like any other phone-glued teenager. This brought me to The Library Of Congress. (Extra points for going to two out of the three options? No?) There, Due Process of Law was defined as “a constitutional guarantee that prevents governments from impacting citizens in an abusive way.” In other words, “a safeguard for tyranny.” Having just spent two semesters studying US History, it was easy to connect this back to the concept of Checks and Balances, used to prevent the President from 

becoming a dictator or a monarch or anything other than the president. For those interested in Due Process’s beginnings, the Library Of Congress details that the origins of the concept can be traced to Chapter 39 of King John’s Magna Carta. For those interested in the constitution, Due Process is found in the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments, which, in the Library of Congress’s words, “guarantee that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” As Crash Course puts it in their video about Due Process, this means that the government cannot kill you, lock you up, fine or take away your stuff, without Due Process…

But what exactly defines Due Process? 

From my research, I derived that there are two types of Due Process: substantial and procedural. Crash Course talked about substantial Due Process being vague and difficult to define, so the focus tends to be more towards Procedural Due Process. According to Crash Course, in Procedural Due Process, “the court looks at whether the government acted properly in applying its power. Court decisions established procedural limitations on law enforcement and adjudication.” These limitations are touched on in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, which ACLU.org gave me a solid simplification of, “the government must tell you what’s happening, quickly provide you an opportunity to be heard in court, and provide you with a neutral decision-maker. (i.e., a court of law)” Simply put, Due Process is a fair trial. For those interested in human rights, that means that every single person in the United States, citizen or not, gets a fair trial. 

Every single person in the United States, citizen or not, gets a fair trial. 

That’s what Due Process is. 

So, Dummies, the next time you see a white knuckled grip on a piece of cardboard, crying out for the people who have been stolen away without one… I hope it’s something you understand. 

Sources

“Due Process of Law - Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor | Exhibitions - Library of Congress.” Library of Congress, 2019, www.loc.gov/exhibits/magna-carta-muse-and-mentor/due-process-of-law.html.

Course, Crash. “Crash Course Government and Politics.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 2015, www.pbs.org/video/crash-course-government-28/. 

Tan, Michael. “What Is Due Process? | ACLU.” American Civil Liberties Union, 28 May 2025, www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/what-is-due-process.