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Habeas Corpus

Habeas corpus is a Latin term that means literally “you have the body.” It refers to a judge-issued writ requiring the government to bring a prisoner to court for the court to consider whether the detainee's imprisonment is legal. It is also known as the Great Writ of Liberty because it is designed to prevent unlawful imprisonment.

Habeas corpus concerns due process—whether an inmate's constitutional or statutory rights have been violated. It is most commonly used when a state prisoner appeals his or her conviction to a federal court on the grounds that his or her constitutional rights were violated. Typically, only those who are incarcerated may file habeas corpus petitions. However, a person may file a petition if a court has threatened to jail him or her for contempt of court. In family law, a parent denied custody of his or her child by a trial court may also file a habeas corpus petition. Finally, many inmates on death row file habeas requests, although recently, their capacity to do so has been restricted.

History

Habeas corpus is mentioned as early as the 14th-century in England, and was formally articulated in the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. It was considered important enough to be mentioned in the U.S. Constitution and the failure to issue it was one of the American colonists' grievances leading up to the American Revolution: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it” (Article 1, Section 9). It is one of the few individual rights guaranteed by the original Constitution.

During the Warren Court years (1953–1969), the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the use of the federal role and that of habeas corpus. It did so on the grounds that the Constitution called for the uniform protection of essential liberties, including the rights of criminal defendants. This trend reached its zenith in Fay v. Noia (1963) where the Court found that liberal access to federal review constituted a fundamental right. Since the 1970s, however, the Court has chipped away at that position, beginning under the stewardship of Justice Warren Burger (1969–1986). Arguing that federal review produced administrative inefficiencies and resource expenditures, the Burger Court in Wainwright v. Sykes (1977) introduced a cost-benefit analysis where the benefits to the individual should be weighed against the costs to the states for multiple appeals to the federal level. Many other changes to habeas corpus have occurred since Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy joined the Court in the 1980s. The Rehnquist Court's conservative majority has sharply limited the use of the writ, especially by death row inmates.

Habeas Corpus in Times of Political Turmoil

Well before the present era, people's rights to habeas corpus were routinely restricted during times of political turmoil. President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War in parts of the Midwest to clamp down on members of the Union who supported the Confederate cause, the so-called Copperheads. Congress supported Lincoln's decision, but Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney objected. Lincoln ignored Justice Taney. In Ex parte Milligan (1866), the Supreme Court ruled that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional since civilian courts were still functioning and habeas corpus could be suspended only if these courts had been forced to close. Notably, this decision came after the Civil War was already over.

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