Any federal court may grant a writ of habeas corpus to a petitioner who is within its jurisdiction. The habeas petition must be in writing and signed and verified either by the petitioner seeking relief or by someone acting on his or her behalf.

Federal courts are not required to hear the petition if a previous petition presented the same issues and no new grounds were brought up.

Finally, a federal judge may dismiss the petition for the writ of habeas corpus if it is clear from the face of the petition that there are no possible grounds for relief.

Today, habeas corpus is mainly used as a post-conviction remedy for state or federal prisoners who challenge the legality of the application of federal laws that were used in the judicial proceedings that resulted in their detention. Other uses of habeas corpus include immigration or deportation cases and matters concerning military detentions, court proceedings before military commissions, and convictions in military court.

Finally, habeas corpus is used to determine preliminary matters in criminal cases, such as: i an adequate basis for detention; ii removal to another federal district court; iii the denial of bail or parole; iv a claim of double jeopardy; v the failure to provide for a speedy trial or hearing; or vi the legality of extradition to a foreign country. The writ of habeas corpus primarily acts as a writ of inquiry, issued to test the reasons or grounds for restraint and detention.

The writ thus stands as a safeguard against imprisonment of those held in violation of the law, by ordering the responsible enforcement authorities to provide valid reasons for the detention. Thus, the writ is designed to obtain immediate relief from unlawful impeachment, by ordering immediate release unless with sufficient legal reasons and grounds.

The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is not to determine the guilt or innocence of a prisoner, but only to test the legality of a prisoner's current detention. The habeas corpus is not a narrow, static, and formalistic remedy, and must retain the flexibility to cut through various barriers of forms and procedural complexities by which a person may be imprisoned or detained. Accordingly, the writ of habeas corpus is a flexible writ that can be administered with initiative and flexibility to obtain release from illegal custody.

Although the writ of habeas corpus is thus a flexible writ for obtaining a release from custody when one is illegally detained, there are some limitations to the rule of habeas corpus. For example, circuit precedent cannot refine or sharpen a general principle of Supreme Court habeas corpus jurisprudence into a specific legal rule that the Supreme Court has not yet announced.

There are only two rare exceptions to this general rule of retroactivity: 1 When a subsequent decision places a certain conduct or defendant beyond the reach of the criminal law that convicted the defendant. Lynaugh , U.

When suspension operates, what is suspended? In Ex parte Milligan , the Court asserted that the Writ is not suspended but only the privilege, so that the Writ would issue and the issuing court on its return would determine whether the person applying can proceed, thereby passing on the constitutionality of the suspension and whether the petitioner is within the terms of the suspension. At its historical core, the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality of Executive detention, and it is in that context that its protections have been strongest.

Lapeyre, U. It might be argued, therefore, that the power to suspend lies elsewhere and that this clause limits that authority. This argument is opposed by the little authority there is on the subject. It would hardly have been meaningful for those states opposing any power to suspend to vote against this language if the power to suspend were conferred elsewhere. Clauses 7, 8.

Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln — rev. Released from prison in April , Milligan sought damages for the time he spent behind bars. He successfully sued the governor, members of the military commission, and others he believed were responsible for his imprisonment, but a recently passed state law limited his award to five dollars. He returned home a hero, convinced that his case had established a vital principle of American liberty: government must honor the rights of individuals, even during national emergencies.

Congress worried, with good reason, that southern state courts would not protect the rights of newly freed slaves, so it passed the Habeas Corpus Act of This measure allowed individuals imprisoned or detained under state authority to seek a writ of habeas corpus from a federal court if they believed the state had violated their constitutional rights.

The act changed the nature of the writ itself. Previously, it had applied only to questions about the legality of detention before trial; now habeas corpus could be invoked by federal judges to review detention after conviction in both federal and state courts. The twentieth century witnessed increased use of habeas corpus in all areas of law, largely because of the expansion of constitutionally protected rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Its use by prisoners is an especially controversial modern use of the habeas petition. Death row inmates often seek post-conviction relief, which is a review after a final judgment to determine whether the trial was fair. The review conducted under a habeas petition is not the same as an appeal.

It involves such questions as: Was the defendant informed of his rights? Did he have access to counsel? Was she tried by an impartial jury? These questions address the lawfulness of procedures used in the pretrial, trial, sentencing, or appeal; the petition for a review cannot claim simply that the defendant is innocent.

This use of habeas corpus in this manner raises popular concern about delays in the finality of justice. The petitions clog federal court dockets, prompting questions about how far the federal judiciary should be involved in criminal justice, historically a responsibility of the states.

In response, both Congress and the Supreme Court in recent years have restricted habeas petitions in capital cases. For all the controversy surrounding their use, however, the vast majority of petitions fail to prove a legal or factual error. Habeas corpus is an old remedy for testing the lawfulness of all detentions, but its primary importance in American history has been to challenge the power of the executive. When drafting the Constitution, the framers were mindful of their heritage as Englishmen.

They also provided means to challenge the authorized use of power, especially by the branch directly responsible for administering the law.

The writ of habeas corpus was one of those means. It could not be suspended, they agreed, except when necessary to preserve the nation itself. This principle, of course, is the central meaning of Ex Parte Milligan. The Court repeatedly has upheld its declaration that the President cannot suspend the Constitution without the express approval of Congress.

Even though it has not applied the decision consistently, as the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II reveals, the justices have never repudiated Milligan. Its principles remain central to our democracy, as a case from the Iraq- Afghanistan conflict demonstrated. Under the congressional resolution authorizing the use of force, the U. Hamdi v. Today, we struggle to reconcile liberty and security, but the constitutional balance point is clear: we value liberty above all else, so we expect any use of governmental power to meet strict tests.

One standard is that government must act according to the law. The writ of habeas corpus assures us that we have a means of enforcing this requirement.

Benjamin Franklin, like other founders, knew this. We hold that although Congress authorized the detention of combatants in the narrow circumstances alleged here, due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker.

In , ratifying conventions were held in each state to consider whether to approve the new constitution proposed by the convention in Philadelphia the previous year.

Voters elected delegates who debated each provision of the document before agreeing to give or withhold consent. The right of habeas corpus, especially the power of Congress to suspend it during times of emergency, drew the attention of these conventions.