The part that trips people up most is that due process is not a general guarantee of fairness from everyone; it mainly limits what the government can do. In the U.S. Constitution, the Due Process Clause appears in the Fifth Amendment, which applies to the federal government, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies to states and local governments. At its core, it means the government must follow lawful procedures before taking away a person's life, liberty, or property, and in some situations it also bars government action that is fundamentally arbitrary no matter what procedure was used. Lawyers often separate that into procedural due process and substantive due process.

In practice, due process issues come up when a person is arrested, fired from a public job, denied a government benefit, disciplined by a school, or deprived of property without proper notice and a meaningful chance to be heard. Fair process is the baseline; the government does not get to make life-changing decisions first and explain later.

For an injury or civil rights claim, the key question is often whether a government actor denied notice, a hearing, or some other basic protection. That can support a Section 1983 claim, though not every unfair result qualifies. In Wyoming, similar protections appear in Article 1, Section 6 of the Wyoming Constitution (1889), which says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.