The Fifth Amendment due process clause prohibits the federal government from discrimination if the discrimination is so unjustifiable that it violates due process of law (Bolling v.

The equal protection clause prevents the state government from enacting criminal laws that discriminate in an unreasonable and unjustified manner. State constitutions generally have a similar provision (California Constitution, 2010).

The Fourteenth Amendment states in relevant part, “nor shall any State…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The equal protection clause applies to the state government. Thus although the original focus of the Bill of Rights may have been limiting the federal government, modern interpretations of the Constitution ensure that its protections also extend to all levels of state and local government. This doctrine is called selective incorporation, and it includes virtually all the constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights. However, US Supreme Court precedent has held that any constitutional amendment that is implicit to due process’s concept of ordered liberty must be incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections and applied to the states (Duncan v. The Bill of Rights was originally written to apply to the federal government. In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment, which was added to the Constitution after the Civil War, has a plethora of protections for criminal defendants in the due process and equal protection clauses. The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Ascertain the purpose of the equal protection clause as it applies to criminal laws.Īlthough the legislative branch’s prohibited powers are in Article I of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights contains most of the constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants.Compare void for vagueness and overbreadth.Distinguish between substantive and procedural due process.Define the principle of selective incorporation.

Due process clause 14th amendment