Also known as: due process right · due-process rights · due process · procedural due process · substantive due process
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Constitutional protections that prevent government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without fair procedures. These rights also shield certain fundamental personal choices from arbitrary state interference.
Federal prosecutors charged Daniel Diaz with a serious felony without presenting the case to a grand jury. Diaz moved to dismiss the indictment. The court granted the motion because the Fifth Amendment requires grand jury screening before a person can be held to answer for an infamous crime.
State officials refused to issue a marriage license to Devon Drake and his fiancée solely because she was of a different race. Drake sued. The court invalidated the statute because the freedom to marry a person of another race is a fundamental liberty protected against state infringement.
A state agency terminated Daphne Doyle's professional license without any hearing or opportunity to respond to the charges. Doyle sued the state. The court held that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids a state from depriving a person of a protected liberty or property interest without due process of law.
State law required Dylan Duffy, a repeat offender, to undergo sterilization as part of his sentence. Duffy challenged the statute. The court struck it down because the right to procreate is a fundamental liberty that the state may not destroy without violating substantive due process.
After the mother died, state officials removed Destiny Davis's child from his care without any hearing. Davis petitioned for custody. The court ruled that due process protects an unmarried father's established custodial relationship and requires a fair process before the state may sever it.
A city ordinance fined Diego Duarte for allowing his grandson to live in the same home. Duarte challenged the ordinance. The court held that the Due Process Clause protects the fundamental right of family members to reside together in a single household.
In early 1973, Mrs. Inez Moore received a notice of violation from the city of East Cleveland. The notice stated that her grandson John Moore, Jr., was an illegal occupant of her home. It directed her to comply with the housing ordinance. Mrs. Moore lived in her East Cleveland home together with her son Dale Moore, Sr., and her two grandsons Dale Moore, Jr., and John Moore, Jr. John came to live with her after his mother's death when he was less than one year old. When she failed to remove John from the home, the city filed a criminal charge against her. Mrs. Moore moved to dismiss the charge. She claimed that the ordinance was constitutionally invalid on its face. Her motion was overruled. Upon conviction she was sentenced to five days in jail and a $25 fine. The East Cleveland ordinance limited occupancy of a dwelling unit to members of a single family. The ordinance defined family to include only a husband or wife of the nominal head of the household, unmarried children of the head or spouse provided they have no children residing with them, a parent of the head or spouse, or not more than one dependent child of the head or spouse along with that child's spouse and dependent children. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction after giving full consideration to her constitutional claims. The Ohio Supreme Court denied review of the case. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction of her appeal.
View caseThe Due Process Clauses protect both procedural fairness before the government may deprive a person of life, liberty, or property and certain substantive fundamental rights that the state may not infringe without sufficient justification.
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State laws that interfere with the fundamental right to marry are subject to the most rigid scrutiny and cannot stand absent a legitimate purpose independent of invidious discrimination.
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No. Due process protects the custodial interests of an unmarried father who has established a family relationship with his child, so the state must provide a fair process before severing that relationship.
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Yes. The right to procreate is a fundamental right, and the state may not impose compulsory sterilization without violating substantive due process and equal protection.
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…Stewart, J. In 1963, this Court, in Ferguson v. Skrupa , 372 U.S. 726, purported to sound the death knell for the doctrine of substantive due process, which had been applied to strike down state legislation concerning economic matters. In the 1960's and 1970's, however, the Court has given renewed life to the due process clause by using…