(1): Judgment must precede execution.

In some cases John proceeded, or threatened to proceed, by force of arms against recalcitrants as though assured of their guilt, without waiting for legal procedure. Complaint was made of arrests and imprisonments suffered “without judgment” (absque judicio); and these are the very words of the “unknown charter”—“Concedit Rex Johannes quod non capiet homines absque judicio.” The Articles of the Barons and Magna Carta expand this phrase. Absque judicio becomes nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terrae, thus guarding, not merely against execution without judgment, but also against John’s subtler device for attacking his enemies by a travesty of judicial process. The Charter asks not only for a “judgment,” but for a “judgment of peers” and “according to the law of the land.” Two species of irregularities were condemned by these words; and these will be explained in the two following subsections.