The massive bronze doors at the front entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court Building are decorated with eight panels depicting significant events in the history of law. On the bottom right panel is an illustration of King John affixing his seal upon the Magna Carta. Inside the ornate courtroom, King John’s image is among those carved into a marble frieze that traces the advancement of the rule of law throughout the world. The significance of the Magna Carta is reflected not only in the court’s architecture, but also in its opinions where justices of the Supreme Court have cited the Great Charter in nearly 200 cases.
Magna Carta’s famous Chapter 39 is most often cited. Chapter 39 provides that “no free man will be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed … except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” Numerous Supreme Court decisions point to this provision as the source of the Due Process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments. As early as 1855, in Murray v. Hoboken Land, 59 U.S. 272, the court declared that, “[t]he words ‘due process of law’ were undoubtedly intended to convey the same meaning as the words ‘by the law of the land’ in Magna Carta.” Id. at 276.
