Habeas Corpus Act

“ The Habeas Corpus Act was passed in the reign of Charles II, 1679. Previous to this time it had been possible for those high in authority effectually to rid themselves of their opponents for long periods of time by having them imprisoned upon some charge, and the Habeas Corpus Act was passed to prevent this abuse of authority by illegitimate detention of persons in prison without a trial. The United States law is practically the same as the English, having been copied from it. ”

“ The Parliament which sat during these proceedings, was in existence for seventeen years, and has gained, or rather has deserved, an undying reputation by the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act. This glorious statute prohibited the sending of anyone to prison beyond the sea, and allowed anyone in jail to insist on being carried before a judge to inquire the cause of his detention. A troublesome captive might therefore, by pretending never to be satisfied with the explanation of the court, keep running perpetually backwards and forwards to ascertain the reason of his captivity. ”

“ If the insurgents assail with an army, he may find it best to use the army against them. It they employ spies and emissaries, he may find it necessary to arrest and imprison them. Having thus arrested and by this right, he is not bound to obey a habeas corpus issued to him by a court. The departments of government are independent of each other. Each has its own sphere. The President's duties are political; those of the courts are judicial. If in time of a rebellion the President arrests a man, it is a political act, not within the domain of the courts, and they cannot interfere with it. ”

“ You were sent back according to law and the Constitution. What could you want more?' From the statements of our Free Soil friends, you would suppose that the habeas corpus was the great safeguard of a slave's freedom; that it covered him as with an angel's wing. But suppose habeas corpus and jury trial granted, what then? Is any man to be even so surrendered, with our consent? No slave shall be sent back—except by habeas corpus. Stop half short of that! No slave shall be sent back! ”

“ No law can be suspended except by the legislature. The writ of habeas corpus is a law; for it is created by act of Congress, and therefore Congress alone can suspend it. In England, Parliament, and not the Crown, suspends the writ, and the makers of our constitution would naturally have followed the English custom, or having it before their eyes would certainly not have made the American President more powerful over civil liberty than the English King. ”

“ VI. And for the prevention of unjust vexation by reiterated commitments for the same offense; be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no person or persons which shall be delivered or sit at large upon any Habeas Corpus shall at any time hereafter be again imprisoned or committed for the same offense by any person or persons whatsoever, other than by the legal order and process of such Court wherein he or they shall be bound by recognizance to appear, or other Court having jurisdiction of the cause ”

“ But this Act is not only an unwarrantable assumption of power by the nation, it is also an infraction of rights reserved to the States. Everywhere within their borders the States are peculiar guardians of personal liberty. By jury and habeas corpus to save the citizen harmless against all assault is among their duties and rights. ”

“ XVIII. And, to the intent no person may avoid his trial – or general gaol delivery by procuring his removal before the Assizes, at such time as he cannot be brought back to receive his trial there, be it enacted, that after the Assizes proclaimed for that county where the prisoner is detained, no person shall be removed from the common gaol under any Habeas Corpus granted in pursuance of this act, but upon any such Habeas Corpus shall be brought before the Judge of Assizes in open Court, who is thereupon to do what to justices shall appertain. ”

“ The clause itself contains all the authority. If it had given some department the right to authorize suspension, the authorization might be a legislative act, but the right actually to suspend is executive. No legislative body can suspend the privilege by an act on the person to be affected, and they never attempt it. Parliament never actually suspends habeas corpus. They authorize the crown or ministry to do it as the occasion arises. That is all that Congress could do, namely, give effect to the action of the President or some one else, and that the constitution does already. ”

“ As regards persons imprisoned for debt or on civil process the writ was available at common law to test the legality of the detention: but the practice in these cases is unaffected by the act of 1679, and is of no present interest, since imprisonment on civil process is almost abolished. As regards persons in private custody, e.g. persons not sui juris detained by those not entitled to their guardianship or lunatics, or persons kidnapped, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum seems not to have been the ordinary common law remedy. ”

“ If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary.
The Act of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners may insist on being brought to trial within a limited time, is the corner-stone of our liberty. ”

“ An oath cannot contain a grant of power which conflicts with other parts of the constitution, and the grant would in this case conflict with the provision declaring that no citizen shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and also with the provision which forbids arrests except by sworn warrants on probable cause. The only exception allowed by the constitution to these two provisions is when habeas corpus is suspended. Arrest and imprisonment derive their validity from suspension. [20] The right to arrest and imprison is the thing to be proved. ”

“ Public justice must, therefore, be defeated, as all will agree, if the error cannot be corrected that the prisoner would be entitled to a discharge on habeas corpus, as every sentence in a criminal case is an entirety, so that if any part of it is unauthorized by law the whole sentence is illegal. ”

“ For one convicted of violating an illegal order of a selective service board, like one convicted of violating an unconstitutional statute, should be afforded an opportunity at some stage to establish the fact. And where no other opportunity existed, habeas corpus would be the appropriate remedy. [14] But that was an additional reason for allowing the defense in the criminal trial, not a statement that defendants prosecuted under § 11 had an alternative of defending at the trial on the basis of an illegal classification or resorting to habeas corpus after conviction. ”

“ Civil society, however, could not exist if it were permitted that crimes should go unpunished, nor is it true that the writ of habeas corpus was ever intended to operate as the means of delivering a prisoner from his imprisonment if he had been duly indicted, convicted, and sentenced, and is in prison by virtue of a lawful conviction under a valid indictment and a legal sentence passed in pursuance of a constitutional law of the jurisdiction where the offence was committed. ”

“ From a political point of view, the great value of habeas corpus is that it protects citizens from a dangerous tendency which is generally found in those who exercise the powers of government. These rulers of men often want to rid themselves quickly of their personal enemies or of those whom they choose to consider the enemies of their country, and one of the easiest methods is to arrest on any sort of charge or suspicion, and keep the victim in confinement simply by not allowing him to be brought to trial. ”

“ Our nation proclaims a belief in the dignity of human beings as such, no matter what their nationality or where they happen to live. Habeas corpus, as an instrument to protect against illegal imprisonment, is written into the Constitution. ”

“ To deny the right of State courts to issue the writ, or, what amounts to the same thing, to concede the right to issue and to deny the right to adjudicate, is to deny the right to protect the citizen by habeas corpus against arbitrary imprisonment in a large class of cases ”

“ There is no higher duty of a court, under our constitutional system, than the careful processing and adjudication of petitions for writs of habeas corpus, for it is in such proceedings that a person in custody charges that error, neglect, or evil purpose has resulted in his unlawful confinement and that he is deprived of his freedom contrary to law. ”