Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment does not expressly require a criminal conviction, and historically, one was not necessary. Reconstruction Era federal prosecutors brought civil actions in court to oust officials linked to the Confederacy, and Congress in some cases took action to refuse to seat Members.
§ 2 Equal protection; discrimination. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws; nor shall any person be denied the enjoyment of his civil or political rights or be discriminated against in the exercise thereof because of religion, race, color or national origin.
§ 28 Administrative action, review. All final decisions, findings, rulings and orders of any administrative officer or agency existing under the constitution or by law, which are judicial or quasi-judicial and affect private rights or licenses, shall be subject to direct review by the courts as provided by law.
24. (1) Crime victims, as defined by law, shall have the following rights, as provided by law: The right to be treated with fairness and respect for their dignity and privacy throughout the criminal justice process. The right to timely disposition of the case following arrest of the accused.
Ratified as it was after the Civil War in 1868, there is little doubt what the Equal Protection Clause was intended to do: stop states from discriminating against blacks. But the text of the Clause is worded very broadly and it has come a long way from its original purpose.
The Equal Protection Clause requires the government to have a valid reason for any law or official action that treats similarly-situated people or groups of people differently.
Governmental actors violate due process when they frustrate the fairness of proceedings, such as when a prosecutor fails to disclose evidence to a criminal defendant that suggests they may be innocent of the crime, or when a judge is biased against a criminal defendant or a party in a civil action.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution contains a number of important concepts, most famously state action, privileges or immunities, citizenship, due process, and equal protection—all of which are contained in Section One.
The amendment's first section includes the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.