What did clause 39 of the Magna Carta say about imprisonment and judgment?

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John John of England, from an early 14th-century illumination.

Clause 39 of the 1215 Magna Carta established a foundational protection against arbitrary power. It states:

No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised, neither will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.1

This provision is widely recognized as the historical origin of due process in Anglo-American jurisprudence. By requiring that legal actions against an individual be conducted through the judgment of peers or the established law of the land, the clause placed the sovereign under the rule of law and provided a critical defense against tyranny and the abuse of power.213