The celebration of the ancient Great Charter is not often celebrated in America, but it should be because the document signed by King John and an assembly of rebel nobles is the 809th celebration of the Magna Carta is this June.  ,
Maybe with Donald Trump’s guilty conviction in his New York judge test new in the country’s head, this week’s anniversary presents an occasion to examine the Magna Carta’s continuing relevance.  ,
The Magna Carta is the most important work to date in the development of American and English law. The foundation was laid for the establishment of constitutional government by imposing restrictions on the sovereign’s power on King John, who had to acknowledge in writing that his power was not absolute and could n’t be exercised arbitrarily.  ,
However, a strong column can be traced from the Magna Carta of 1215 to the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and America’s Bill of Rights ratified in 1791. It is without debate that the report served as our founding documents ‘ main source of inspiration when creating our Bill of Rights.  ,
Magna Carta’s Clause 39, one of the most continued- cited, states,” No completely man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other method ruined, nor will we go against him or give against him, except by the constitutional judgment of his peers or by the law of the land” . ,
The Sixth Amendment’s protection of the present-day straight to a trial by jury, which Clause 39 refers to as “lawful view of his peers,” is the foundation of our Bill of Rights ‘ Bill of Rights. In England, the phrase “due method of law” immediately came to mean. As early as 1354, the word “due method of rules” appeared in a legislation during King Edward II I’s era. The Magna Carta’s promise was restated in this manner by that act. It reads,” No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements, nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law” . ,
Sir Edward Coke, the most notable judge and attorney of the Elizabethan era, directly equated the term “law of the land” with “due process of law” in his popular” Institutes of the Lawes of England” book, published in periods between 1628 and 1644. America’s founders were intimately familiar with Coke’s” Institutes”. The Fifth and 14th Amendments of our Constitution ensure that all citizens of the United States are not denied access to their life, liberty, or property without “due process of law.”
By no means did the Great Charter’s influence end at the nation’s founding. In the development of our constitutional law, the Supreme Court has referenced the Magna Carta more than 200 times, frequently in order to address the requirements of due process.  ,
Now back to Trump’s jury trial.
David Rivkin and Elizabeth Foley successfully argue that Trump’s conviction violated his constitutional rights in a recent Wall Street Journal article. As they explain, under Supreme Court precedents, due process requires notice of the crime charged. It also requires a meaningful opportunity to defend, and prove, all elements of the crime. No principle of due process, according to the court in Cole v. Arkansas, is more clearly established than that the defendant has a” chance to be heard in a trial of the issues raised by that charge.” The court stated in In re Winship that” the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon the availability of all the necessary evidence to support the charge of the accused against conviction.”
Numerous articles have already been written about the fact that Trump’s indictment did not specify the “other crime” upon which the conversion of a misdemeanor for falsifying business records to a felony was dependent. The other crime at trial was not specifically stated by the prosecution. According to Rivkin and Foley,” The charged crime impacted on the intention to commit yet another unspecified crime, which in turn impacted the actual commission of yet another unspecified offense.”
Although I think Trump’s right to a fair jury trial was likely violated, my goal is not to present that brief in its entirety. Instead, it demonstrates that when Trump’s attorneys make their arguments on appeal, they can refute their claim that the New York jury trial lacked due process by drawing straight from the Magna Carta, which was signed on June 15, 1215.  ,
If they succeed, and if Trump’s conviction is reversed on appeal, not only will his rights be vindicated, but the rights of all individuals facing criminal charges will be made more secure. Then, the barons who made King John sign the Great Charter at Runnymede may look up with satisfaction.  ,
Randolph May is president of the Free State Foundation, a free market- oriented think tank in Rockville, Maryland.
