In common law countries, habeas corpus, Latin for “you [should] have the body”, is the name of a legal action or writ by means of which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment. However, habeas corpus has a much broader meaning in common law today. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a prisoner be brought before the court for determination of whether that person is serving a lawful sentence and/or whether he or she should be released from custody. The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.
Habeas corpus can also mean that the imprisoning authority of an alleged murderer ‘should have the body’ to prove that there has indeed been a murder at all, but this usage is rare.
The most common present-day usage of the writ is to appeal state criminal convictions to the federal courts when the petitioner believes his constitutional rights were violated by state procedure. An individual incarcerated in a state prison is expected to exhaust all possible routes available before applying to a federal judge for habeas corpus. The term is mentioned as early as the 14th cent. in England, and was formalized in the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. The privilege of the use of this writ as a safeguard against illegal imprisonment was highly regarded by the British colonists in America, and wrongful refusals to issue the writ were one of the grievances before the American Revolution. As a result, the Constitution of the United States provides that “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). President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War, and his decision was upheld by Congress-despite protests by Chief Justice Roger Taney that such suspension was not within the powers of the President. The Supreme Court’s liberal decisions in the 1950s and 1960s in the area of prisoners’ rights encouraged many incarcerated persons to file writs challenging their convictions, but the Court under William Rehnquist limited multiple habeas corpus filings, particularly from prisoners on death row.