Study the following quote. " no free man shall be sized or imprisioned. or stripped of his rights or exept by the lawful judgment of his peers". this quote from the magna carta encouraged american colonists to belive

This clause established the idea that people could only be judged according to the law, and that even the king himself had to follow the law. King John had previously acted as if the law did not apply to him. The other thing that is important about this clause is that it stipulates that a person should be judged by a group of their equals (not by the king or his men). The jury system that still exists in Britain today is a continuation of the idea put forward in this clause.  

The real legacy of Magna Carta as a whole is that it limited the king's authority byestablishing the crucial principle that the law was a power in its own right to whichthe king was subject.