How Did The Founding Fathers Protect Individual Rights

The Founding Fathers created The Bill of Rights in order to protect citizens’ individual rights under written law. One of the most important type of rights outlined in this document are the rights of the accused. Before the amendments that protect accused individuals were enforced, there was a decent amount of room for government to gain more power and for the people to lose justice and freedom while in the courts. Many innocent citizens would be labeled as guilty without trial and sent to jail. The Founding Fathers realized this major flaw in their government, so they created amendments like four, five, six, seven, and eight. Although this did not cure all issues surrounding the courts and right of the accused, it did make it harder for citizens to be treated cruelly through due process. There are still many court cases today that seem unconstitutional to the eyes of citizens. In some cases, people are discriminated against or profiled based off of stereotypes, which leads to a bias when a jury comes to rule the defendant as innocent or guilty. In other cases in the past, there is not even a jury of peers
This was especially crucial to maintain in the judicial system. In the past, corrupt and powerful people could accuse a person of a crime and lock them in jail without ever charging them. The writ of habeas corpus does not allow this to happen anymore. This forces law enforcement and other persons in power to bring the accused before a judge or into a court. Without this writ, the government would have essentially endless power at the hands of the judicial system. This is another check on the use of government power. The definition of habeas corpus translates to “produce the body.” This is a court order stating to deliver the accused individual to the court issuing the order and to show sufficient and valid reasoning behind the arrest