Historical Meaning Behind ‘Equal Protection of the Laws’
Equal Protection of the Laws simply means all persons shall be tried and punished equally before courts of law as it did under Common Law. The clause has no application outside of criminal law which explains why the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments were needed. Justice Scalia speaking of the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause (EPC) to students at UC Hastings College of the Law in September 2010 remarked, “nobody thought it was directed against sex discrimination.” Scalia could have added nobody thought…
