How is natural law incorporated into the American Legal System and explain how Natural Law encourages the protection of the rights of those accused...

Natural law is incorporated into the American legal system at a foundational level. In fact, one must go back to not only the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution but also to before these documents, to esteemed thinkers such as Aristotle and John Locke, to determine natural law’s importance in establishing the jurisprudence of the United States. Once one understands the concept of natural law, one can more easily grasp how fundamental it is to America’s understanding and implementation of law and justice.

Natural law can be defined as “a recognition and assertion of the natural rights of men, a declaration that, in a state of nature and before the formation of political society, men were equal in their possessions of certain inalienable rights which Jefferson, author of the Declaration, described as rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’” (Desmond 235-6).

Natural law derives from natural rights, inalienable rights, which are those rights with which one is born. John Locke asserted that men are free, naturally. They are born equal to one another. He noted that free and equal people, in a society, enter into a social contract where they exchange some of their natural rights for certain limited rights under a government, which exists to protect the people’s lives, liberty, and property. Locke further asserts that natural law, as opposed to, for example, divine law, applies to everyone and can be ascertained solely by reason (Tuckness).

Natural law encourages protecting a criminal defendant’s rights because it recognizes one’s inherent right to life, liberty, and property. If one is accused of a crime, but possesses a natural right to liberty, meaning he or she was born free, already enjoying this right, it is significant that the accusers may restrict that person's liberty if they prove the accused has committed a crime against another person. The accusers must be able to prove the person, in fact, committed the crime. Otherwise, any penalty for committing the crime, any restriction of one’s liberty, would be arbitrary and would violate natural law, which, again, holds that a person’s natural state is liberty.

Charles S. Desmond, Natural Law and the American Constitution, 22 Fordham L. Rev. (1953).

Tuckness, Alex. "Locke's Political Philosophy." Stanford University. Stanford University, 2005. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.