Habeas Corpus Practice

Habeas corpus cases – civil proceedings where individuals challenge the legality of their detention or imprisonment – are near and dear to my heart. The most commonly-filed types of habeas corpus petitions stand at the intersection of criminal law and civil procedure, and are often referred to by courts as quasi-criminal in nature.

Early Foundations and Career Experience

As a law student, I authored a publication that analyzed the historical dynamic regarding the power struggle between the judicial and executive authorities, during assertions of national emergency, where executive authorities sought to avoid judicial review of their decisions to detain people without judicial involvement

After law school, my first job in the federal public defender system was representing Alabama’s death-row inmates in their federal habeas corpus challenges to their death sentences. Since then, I have represented dozens of individuals in various types of habeas corpus litigation as a public defender, and I have researched and composed numerous draft judicial opinions in habeas corpus litigation as a career law clerk to a federal judge.

Historical Origins of Habeas Corpus

The concept behind habeas corpus is old. Habeas corpus, and a variety of closely associated writs (like the writ de odio et atia, or the writ of mainprize), have been used to inquire into the legality of detention and imprisonment in Anglo-American law for well over eight centuries.

It is, in the words of the great 18th century jurist, William Blackstone:

“the most celebrated writ in English law . . . the great and efficacious writ in all manner of illegal confinement . . . directed to the person detaining another, and commanding him to produce the body of the prisoner with the day and cause of his caption and detention, ad faciendum, subjiciendum, et recipiendum, to do, submit to, and receive, whatsoever the judge or court awarding such writ shall consider in that behalf.”

Modern Federal Habeas Corpus Law

Today, under federal law, habeas corpus is codified in a number of statutes and categorized according to the type of detention or imprisonment being challenged.

State Prisoners

One provision addresses petitions brought by state-prisoners, imprisoned pursuant to state-court judgments in criminal cases, who seek to argue that their federal constitutional rights have been violated by imprisonment under state-court authority. This provision is attended with a complicated interplay between a series of state-law and federal-law restrictions and deadlines.

Federal Prisoners

Another provision deals with federal prisoners imprisoned pursuant to federal-court judgments in federal criminal cases who seek to argue that their federal constitutional rights have been violated by their imprisonment by federal authorities.

Post-Conviction Challenges

In both of these types of habeas corpus cases, also known as collateral or post-conviction challenges to judgments of conviction, prisoners bring a civil case (after their direct appeals are exhausted) in order to litigate matters that generally were unable to be litigated either during their criminal case or during the ensuing appeals.

For example, criminal defendants have a constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel. Because it is unlikely that someone’s attorney would litigate their own incompetence during the criminal case, and because the effectiveness of counsel will usually require evidentiary support (and appellate courts are courts of review where new evidence is not accepted), a prisoner who seeks a new trial or a new sentencing hearing, or a new appeal, must do so through habeas corpus proceedings such that evidence may be offered and testimony may be taken in order for the judge to decide the question in the first instance.

General Detention Challenges

Yet another provision of federal law allows for the filing of a petition of habeas corpus by anyone who is detained or in custody under the authority of the United States for any reason whatsoever so long as the person can show that the custody is in violation of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. This last provision has been enshrined in American law since President Washington signed the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789.