Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-303_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 11

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

But  “[t]he  notion  that  a  constitutional  provision  that 
guarantees only ‘process’ before a person is deprived of life, 
liberty,  or  property  could  define  the  substance  of  those 
rights  strains  credulity  for  even  the  most  casual  user  of 
words.”  McDonald  v.  Chicago,  561  U. S.  742,  811  (2010) 
(THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in  part  and  concurring  in  judg-
ment).  Rather, “ ‘considerable historical evidence supports 
the position that “due process of law” was a separation-of-
powers concept designed as a safeguard against unlicensed 
executive  action,  forbidding  only  deprivations  not  author-
ized  by  legislation  or  common  law.’ ”  Johnson  v.  United 
States, 576 U. S. 591, 623 (2015) (THOMAS, J., concurring in
judgment) (quoting D. Currie, The Constitution in the Su-
preme Court: The First Hundred Years 1789–1888, p. 272 
(1985));  see  also  In re  Winship,  397  U. S.  358,  378–382 
(1970) (Black, J., dissenting).  And, to the extent that the 
Due Process Clause restrains the authority of Congress, it
may, at most, prohibit Congress from authorizing the dep-
rivation  of  a  person’s  life,  liberty,  or  property  without 
providing him the “customary procedures to which freemen
were entitled by the old law of England.”  Pacific Mut. Life 
Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U. S. 1, 28 (1991) (Scalia, J., concur-
ring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted); see 
also Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 
18  How.  272  (1856).    Either  way,  the  Fifth  Amendment’s
text and history provide little support for modern substan-
tive due process doctrine.

To be sure, some have argued that “antebellum due pro-
cess theory commonly included an equality principle” that
circumscribed legislative authority.  K. Lash, Enforcing the
Rights of Due Process, 106 Geo. L. J. 1389, 1443 (2018).  But 
there is no historical consensus that this kind of substan-
tive due process took hold in antebellum America.  See, e.g.,
I. Wurman,  The  Second  Founding  28–35  (2020).    And,  in 
any  event,  “the  pre-constitutional  and  Founding-era  evi-
dence regarding the meaning of ‘due process of law’ strongly