What Does Habeas Corpus Mean?

and lawful reason for doing so. This is sometimes called habeas corpus, which is Latin for you have the body, which is basically a way of saying, Okay, you've got a prisoner in custody, bring that person before a judge so that we can figure out whether they're being imprisoned legally or not. In countries around the world, there are laws on the books that allow a prisoner to petition for habeas corpus relief, meaning that they can ask to have a judge look at whether it's legal that they've

been detained. Habeas corpus doesn't have anything to do with the prisoner's guilt or innocence. It's just a matter of does the government have the right to detain me. It's a good question to be able to ask in terms of having human rights. So today let's talk about the history of habeas corpus. Habeas corpus was first clearly laid out in the year twelve fifteen in the Magna Carta, an English charter limiting the monarchy's power and establishing individual

freedoms for the upper class. Anyway, it said in its thirty ninth clause is something to the extent of no man shall be arrested or imprisoned, except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land. The Magna Carto was based on prior documents, but has often been cited as a foundation or inspiration for all of democratic law, and this clause in particular is pointed to as the basis for the system of trial by jury.

Habeas corpus protections started really seeing use in the sixteen hundreds in England, both as a way to limit the monarchy's power to imprison people and to allow the monarchy to check other authorities power to imprison people. This was pertinent at the time, perhaps especially due to concerns about religious persecution. Parliament wrote the Habeas Corpus Act into law

in sixteen seventy nine. A century later, the framers of the Constitution of the United States thought that it was important enough to include a mention in the Bill of rights. But Article one, Section nine, and Congress authorized federal courts to grant relief through it right off the bat in seventeen eighty nine when they began laying out the powers of the courts. So, habeas corpus is old, Does that

mean that it's antiquated? The short answer is unequivocally no. Without it, no one is truly free, because anyone could be removed from their life and imprisoned indefinitely for no reason at all, with no access to the due process

of a fair trial. In a decision handed down by the Supreme Court in nineteen ninety two, the justices substantiated the importance of habeas corpus, calling it quote the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action. So how exactly does habeas corpus support the dignity of the legal process? Habeas corpus is part of a twofold process.

In a petition for habeas corpus, a prisoner or another interested party raises doubts about the legality of their imprisonment. If the petition is successful in demonstrating that the imprisonment justifies an examination, a judge will issue a writ of habeas corpus. This is the order for the prisoner to be brought to court. At that time, the judge examines the issue again. The writ of habeas corpus isn't meant to determine whether the detainee is guilty of the crime

that they're accused of. It's a call for examination of the legality of their imprisonment, was the due process of law followed. A due process is a group of constitutionally guaranteed rights that in the US includes a fair and speedy trial, access to legal counsel, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, a trial by a jury of peers, and

an appearance before one's accusers. But even a constitutional guarantee carries little weight if there's no mechanism in place to grant recourse to the person on the receiving end of that guarantee. Habeas corpus ensures that the right to due process is supported by action. Since its inception, Congress has expanded federal court's power to provide habeas relief to state prisoners too, if their imprisonment is in violation of federal law,

including civil rights. Sometimes habeas corpus is used as a last ditch strategic tool to obtain freedom for a defendant in a criminal case, but only after the appeals process has been exhausted. A court reviewing a habeas plea can consider new evidence, whereas in an appeal no new evidence can be submitted. Once an issue raised in a habeas plea has been decided, however, it cannot be debated again

in regard to the same case. Habeas corpus is so important that several cases over the past one hundred years or so have confirmed the right of this due process to all people physically present in the United States or detained elsewhere by the government of the United States, regardless of that person's citizenship. The US Constitution provides for suspension of habeas corpus in only extreme and express cases, but as with any law, exactly when and what these cases

are is subject to interpretation. The framers of the Constitution recognized that there are situations where revoking habeas corpus may be necessary for the common good. Article one, section nine states that habeas corpus quote shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it. The such instances have emerged throughout our history.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and a few specific situations starting in eighteen sixty one, which may have saved lives by allowing the Northern military to detain suspected spies, but was also technically legal until Congress approved the suspension in eighteen sixty three retroactively and for the duration of the war. Only Congress has the

legal ability to suspend habeas corpus. They did so briefly during reconstruction in the South to prevent violence and intimidation from white supremacist groups like the KKK in parts of South Carolina. Another brief suspension of habeas corpus was put in place in the then territory of the Philippines by the American military in nineteen oh five during political unrest, but there was a larger instance after Japan bombed Pearl

Harbor in nineteen forty one. More than one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans were detained without recourse in Hawaii under martial law and along the west coast of the mainland by presidential decree. The majority were American born or naturalized citizens. The Department of Justice voiced ethical and constitutional objections, so the decree Executive Order in ninety sixty six authorized

the military to exclude civilians from military areas. They divided the West Coast into military zones, evacuated Japanese Americans living there, and detained them in internment camps indefinitely with no due process. It was because of a writ of habeas corpus that the exclusion order was removed in late nineteen forty four, and the camps were shut down entirely by nineteen forty six. The twenty first century has seen suspensions of habeas corpus

as well. After the attacks on September eleventh of two thousand and one, President George W. Bush and Congress concluded that conditions warranted repealing the right to habeas corpus. The Detainee Treatment Act of two thousand and five and the Military Commissions Act of two thousand and six removed any court's ability to hear a petition of habeas corpus for anyone deemed an enemy combatant by the US government, and they did so retroactively, relating to the detention of suspects

following September eleventh in places like Guantanamo Bay. This was reversed by the Supreme Court in two thousand and eight. Then, in early twenty twenty five, the Trump administration began enacting mass arrest and detention of many different refugees, temporary migrants, and intendedly permanent immigrants living in the US in preparation for deporting them. The administration argued that the US is being invaded by such people and that many of them

have violent criminal intent. As of June fifteenth of this year, over fifty six thousand people were actively being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. Of those, seventy two percent had no criminal record at all, and only seven

percent had any record of violence or property damage. Several people have successfully applied for habeas relief and have been released, and Supreme Court ruled in April that immigrants must be given enough notice of deportation to begin due process and petition for habeas relief if they choose. However, constitutional experts and human rights organizations have raised concerns that not all detainees understand or are able to access their right to

due process because of the speed and scale of the detentions. Furthermore, officials in the administration have told the press that their considering suspended ding Habeas corpus entirely. This is a potential problem for everyone in America because without recourse against false or illegal imprisonment, you don't have the due process to prove that you haven't committed a crime, or that you are a citizen, or that you otherwise deserve to go free.

If you can be imprisoned without due process, the other rights granted to people in America go out the window. So even if habeas corpus you have the body sounds archaic, it's actually quite important, perhaps especially today. Today's episode is based on the article why is habeas corpus important? On how stuffworks dot com written by Josh Clark. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks

dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or whereever you listen to your favorite shows. M