Habeas Corpus

Habeas corpus, Latin for "you should have the body," is a legal action, or writ, to bring a prisoner before a judge to determine if his or her detention is lawful. The writ of habeas corpus has been described as "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action," by the U.S. Supreme Court.

History

The idea of habeas corpus began in thirteenth-century England. The Magna Carta's "Great Writ" said, "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned…except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land." Stemming from this text came the idea that a person cannot be deprived of their freedom without due process of law. "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," can be found in Article 1, section 9 of the United States Constitution. The Judiciary Act of 1789, which established the federal court system, gave the courts the authority to issue habeas corpus to federal prisoners. It was established in 1807 that federal judges did not have the power to issue the writ to prisoners held by state or local governments.

Civil War and Reconstruction Era

In 1861, Maryland state legislator John Merryman was arrested for trying to prevent Union troops from moving from Baltimore to Washington D.C. He was held by Union military officials. Although his attorney filed a writ of habeas corpus, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus and officials refused to release Merryman. His suspension first applied along military transport lines, but was then expanded to include all arrests made for disloyal conduct in Union territory. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that Lincoln did not have the authority to make such a decision. Lincoln did not initially respond to fight Taney's ruling, but in a later speech he defended himself for suspending the rules in the name of ending the Southern rebellion.

Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1863, which allowed the president to suspend habeas corpus during the war. It also required the military to report all prisoners to the federal courts and to release them if they were not indicted promptly. In 1867, Congress extended the right of habeas corpus to state prisoners, on the grounds that their imprisonment may violate a federal right. Federal courts were also given the authority to extend habeas corpus to prisoners post-conviction. Previously, it only applied to those being held for trial.

AEDPA

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 placed new guidelines on the writ of habeas corpus in order to expedite executions of death row prisoners. The bill reinforced the prohibition of filing multiple habeas corpus petitions, limited the time that an inmate could file habeas corpus in a federal court, and instructed federal courts to presume that state court rulings on habeas corpus were constitutional, "provided these determinations are neither 'contrary to' nor an 'unreasonable application of' clearly established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court."

Presidential Military Order and Guantanamo Bay

The November 13, 2001, President George W. Bush signed the Presidential Military Order, which gave the president of the United States the power to detain a non-citizen suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism as an unlawful combatant. As such, it was asserted that a person could be held indefinitely without charges being filed against him or her, without a court hearing, and without entitlement to a legal consultant. Many legal and constitutional scholars contended that these provisions were in direct opposition to habeas corpus and the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, filed for habeas corpus in federal district court. A military tribunal declared him an enemy combatant, but the district court ruled that he must be given a hearing to decide whether he was a prisoner of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention before being tried by the military. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the district court's decision. The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 on June 29, 2006, that neither Congress nor the president had the power to authorize the military commission in question. Therefore, Hamdam's military trial had been illegal.

Read the Supreme Court's ruling here.

Congress passed the Military Commissions Act on September 29, 2006. In part, this act prohibited an "unlawful enemy combatant" from seeking habeas corpus and prevented any court or judge from considering a writ of habeas corpus from such a detainee.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order in January 2009 declaring that the prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base "have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus." As of September 2023, the prison at Guantanamo Bay had not been closed.