Previous edition, 2nd, published in 1994.

Federal habeas corpus is a procedure under which a federal court may review the legality of an individual's incarceration. It is most often the stage of the criminal appellate process that follows direct appeal and any available state collateral review. The law in the area is an intricate weave of statute and case law. Current federal law operates under the premise that with rare exceptions prisoners challenging the legality of the procedures by which they were tried or sentenced get "one bite of the apple." Relief for state prisoners is only available if the state courts have ignored or rejected their valid claims, and there are strict time limits within which they may petition the federal courts for relief. Moreover, a prisoner relying upon a novel interpretation of law must succeed on direct appeal; federal habeas review may not be used to establish or claim the benefits of a "new rule." Expedited federal habeas procedures are available in the case of state death row inmates if the state has provided an approved level of appointed counsel. The Supreme Court has held that Congress enjoys considerable authority to limit, but not to extinguish, access to the writ. This report is available in an abridged version as CRS Report RS22432, "Federal Habeas Corpus: An Abridged Sketch," by Charles Doyle.

This book tells the story of habeas corpus from medieval England to modern America, crediting the rocky history to the writ's very nature as a government power. The book weighs in on habeas's historical controversies - addressing the writ's role in the power struggle between the federal government and the states, and the proper scope of federal habeas for state prisoners and for wartime detainees from the Civil War and World War II to the War on Terror.

Habeas Corpus in Wartime unearths and presents a comprehensive account of the legal and political history of habeas corpus in wartime in the Anglo-American legal tradition. The book begins by tracing the origins of the habeas privilege in English law, giving special attention to the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which limited the scope of executive detention and used the machinery of the English courts to enforce its terms. It also explores the circumstances that led Parliament to invent the concept of suspension as a tool for setting aside the protections of the Habeas Corpus Act in wartime. Turning to the United States, the book highlights how the English suspension framework greatly influenced the development of early American habeas law before and after the American Revolution and during the Founding period, when the United States Constitution enshrined a habeas privilege in its Suspension Clause. The book then chronicles the story of the habeas privilege and suspension over the course of American history, giving special attention to the Civil War period. The final chapters explore how the challenges posed by modern warfare during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have placed great strain on the previously well-settled understanding of the role of the habeas privilege and suspension in American constitutional law, particularly during World War II when the United States government detained tens of thousands of Japanese American citizens and later during the War on Terror. Throughout, the book draws upon a wealth of original and heretofore untapped historical resources to shed light on the purpose and role of the Suspension Clause in the United States Constitution, revealing all along that many of the questions that arise today regarding the scope of executive power to arrest and detain in wartime are not new ones.

This casebook is the first to cover federal habeas corpus comprehensively, presenting post-conviction review and executive detention litigation in an accessible way. It is designed both for standalone courses on habeas corpus, and for courses focusing on post-conviction litigation, wrongful convictions, and national security detention. The first two chapters introduce students to the habeas privilege and the Suspension Clause. A four-chapter unit on post-conviction litigation carefully explores cognizability, procedural doctrines, and merits adjudication. Two chapters develop the role habeas plays in review of immigration and other types of civil detention. A substantial two-chapter unit examines habeas review of military custody.

For most Americans, habeas corpus is the cornerstone of our legal system: the principal constitutional check on arbitrary government power, allowing an arrested person to challenge the legality of his detention. In a study that could not be more timely, Justin Wert reexamines this essential individual right and shows that habeas corpus is not necessarily the check that we've assumed. Habeas corpus, it emerges, is as much a tool of politics as it is of law. In this first study of habeas corpus in an American political context, Wert shifts our collective emphasis from the judicial to the political-toward the changes in the writ influenced by Congress, the president, political parties, state governments, legal academics, and even interest groups. By doing so, he reveals how political regimes have used habeas corpus both to undo the legacies of their predecessors and to establish and enforce their own vision of constitutional governance. Tracing the history of the writ from the Founding to Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Boumediene v. Bush, Wert illuminates crucial developmental moments in its evolution. He demonstrates that during the antebellum period, Reconstruction, Gilded Age, Great Society, and the ongoing war on terrorism, habeas corpus has waxed and waned in harmony with the interests of majoritarian politics. Along the way, Wert identifies and explains the political context of fine points of law that many political scientists and historians may not be aware of—such as the exhaustion rule requiring that a federal habeas participant must first exhaust all possible claims for relief in state court, a maneuver by which the post-Reconstruction Court abandoned supervision of race relations in the South. Especially in light of the new scrutiny of habeas corpus prompted by the Guantánamo detainees, Wert's book is essential for broadening our understanding of how law and politics continue to intersect after 9/11. Brimming with fresh insights into constitutional development and regime theory, it shows that the Great Writ of Liberty may not be so great as we have supposed-because while it has the potential to enforce conceptions of rights that are consistent with the best ideals of American politics, it also has the potential to enforce its worst aspects as well.

For centuries, the writ of habeas corpus has served as an important safeguard against miscarriages of justice, and today it remains at the center of some of the most contentious issues of our time—among them terrorism, immigration, crime, and the death penalty. Yet, in recent decades, habeas has been seriously abused. In this book, Nancy J. King and Joseph L. Hoffmann argue that habeas should be exercised with greater prudence. Through historical, empirical, and legal analysis, as well as illustrative case studies, the authors examine the current use of the writ in the United States and offer sound reform proposals to help ensure its ongoing vitality in today’s justice system. Comprehensive and thoroughly grounded in a modern understanding of habeas corpus, this informative book will be an insightful read for legal scholars and anyone interested in the importance of habeas corpus for American government.

Habeas Corpus is the process by which state prisoners—particularly those on death row—appeal to federal courts to have their convictions overturned. Its proper role in our criminal justice system has always been hotly contested, especially in the wake of 1996 legislation curtailing the ability of prisoners to appeal their sentences. In this timely volume, Eric M. Freedman reexamines four of the Supreme Court’s most important habeas corpus rulings: one by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1807 concerning Aaron Burr’s conspiracy, two arising from the traumatic national events of the 1915 Leo Frank case and the 1923 cases growing out of murderous race riots in Elaine County, Arkansas, and one case from 1953 that dramatized some of the ugliest features of the Southern justice of the period. In each instance, Freeman uncovers new original sources and tells the stories of the cases through such documents as the Justices’ draft opinions and the memos of law clerk William H. Rehnquist. In bracing and accessible language, Freedman then presents an interpretation that rewrites the conventional view. Building on these results, he challenges legalistic limits on habeas corpus and demonstrates how a vigorous writ is central to implementing the fundamental conceptions of individual liberty and constrained government power that underlie the Constitution.