Opinion ID: 2103784
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Textual Comparison of the Respective Clauses

Text: Although this Court has often noted that differences in the language of constitutional provisions can sometimes imply that a right is subject to greater protection under our state Constitution, [8] the textual differences in this case can be accorded very little weight in terms of constitutional significance. With respect to the language of the federal Constitution, there can be little doubt that the phrase due process of law was meant to provide for the same substantive guarantees as the phrase law of the land. [9] In fact, the United States Supreme Court, in its first significant interpretation of the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause, confirmed this fact by stating 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. Murray v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 59 U.S. 272, 276, 18 How. 272, 15 L.Ed. 372 (1855). Although it should be of little surprise given the common history of the phrases, the Tennessee Supreme Court has also consistently held or stated under all three Constitutional periods since 1796 that the phrase law of the land carries with it the same import and meaning as the phrase due process of law. [10] Indeed, several of these cases were decided under previous constitutional periods, and in the interest of continuity in the law, this Court has long accorded these older cases much weight when construing substantially identical provisions in the 1870 Constitution. Cf. Cumberland Capital Corp. v. Patty, 556 S.W.2d 516, 526 (Tenn.1977). Moreover, Tennessee is not alone in interpreting the phrase law of the land to mean due process of law. North Carolina's Constitution receives a similar interpretation from its courts, as do the Constitutions of Maryland and Pennsylvania, from which it is generally supposed that the North Carolina Constitution was substantially derived. See Lewis L. Laska, The Tennessee Constitution 5 (1990). [11] Consequently, because both federal and Tennessee courts have interpreted the phrases due process of law and law of the land to carry the same essential meaning, the majority's premise concerning the breadth of Tennessee's Law of the Land Clause cannot be sustained on the basis of any textual differences in the two clauses. As the common history of the clauses would naturally lead one to conclude, the textual differences between the two phrases are of no significance in terms of substantive constitutional law, and despite their minor textual differences, the respective clauses provide co-extensive protections of liberty. Accordingly, the majority cannot rely upon any perceived textual differences between Article I, section 8 and the Fourteenth Amendment to support its position concerning the breadth of the Tennessee Law of the Land Clause.