American Constitutional Theory derives firmly, although, not solely in the historied Age of Enlightenment and reason. Many of the scholars , thinkers and philosophers of that storied age had a powerful impact upon the framers of the American constitution. For example, Adam Smith, John Locke , Montesquieu, Rossieu and others. Without serious doubt, to the criminal defense lawyer, the Enlightenment concept , reason dictates that core , principal, unalienable rights belong to humankind as an endowment from God, bestowed by a universal supreme diety, rather than emanating from the particular government which has jurisdiction over the region so governed. The key distinction between the two competing worldviews, is within, the first since these unalienable rights are gifted or endowed by God, or in other words, inherent in the nature of humankind, a government cannot rightfully abscond with these unalienable rights by alienating those rights from the people without the highest countervailing rationale, such as murder, or theft. And such a taking or cutting off of a person’s unalienable right the police power of the State would have to prove the rightful exercise of State police powers, in order, to alienate or cut off these inherent rights endowed upon the people by nature’s God.
The latter view takes a different approach, in that what a government provided to a particular person or the general group of her citizens, the government can legitimately alienate or cutoff from the people without necessity of due process because what the government has given to the people, the government can take from the people.
This concept of due process of the law is extremely significant to the criminal defense lawyer. This is so because within our system of justice the starting point bequeathed by constitutional precepts are that the accused is innocent of the charges until proven through due process
guilty. In addition , the State must prove the government allegations against the individual through the highest degree of evidence , which is the ” reasonable doubt” standard. Any lesser degree of proof such as ” scintilla”, ” preponderance”, ” clear and convincing ” will not satisfy the beyond the ” reasonable doubt” standard. The jury trial, due process, the beyond the reasonable doubt standard are all legal mechanism set in place to safeguard the “Age of Reason and Englightnent ” ideas of ” unalienable rights” bestowed or gift by God upon every individual throughout humanity and existing in nature before the creation of formal governments which began to exercise police power over humanity. By Jeffrey E Elliott (Cruz)
