Why is Due Process Important?

We are a nation of laws and a consistent process aimed at protecting the rights of the individual has been a mainstay of our national legal process since our inception.  True, it is a concept deeply flawed by the humans who are supposed to implement those laws and oversee the fair and impartial justice under them, but it is so far the best mankind has come up with.  But if that process does not apply to all our citizens then what is to say it should apply to any of our citizens?

So, we come to the potential impeachment of the President.  The question before us and the Congress is should he be afforded the same protections we are supposed to guarantee to someone accused of a felony or are his “high crimes and misdemeanors” somehow beyond the protections of the U.S. Constitution as it is amended?

From my lowly vantage point, it appears the Congress is clearly divided between political parties and this issue of national importance has been made into a political football with one side writing and changing the rules and the other side crying foul.  It has become a pure political theater with the highest possible stakes.  If it continues, as it seems likely, it will inevitably set a precedent where whoever is president will be subject to the whims of the mob, and there will be no such thing as due process. 

Those who seek to remove the President have shown little regard for respecting the institution of our electoral process and are so emotionally committed to overturning the last election they see no downside to this approach of impeaching someone they despise.  I suspect this emotional approach is similar to the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, where those of the North were so outraged over the Civil War they would destroy anyone other than Abraham Lincoln who stood in the way of their exacting their financial vengeance, unity of the nation be damned. When that happens, as it must, what will be the impact of justice for the common man or woman accused of anything from a petty to horrific crime? 

If many of us distrust the fairness of the legal system today, think of how that will grow when we see not even the supposedly most powerful individual in the country can expect the protections afforded by adherence to a legal due process.