Habeas corpus is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub. L. 104–132 (text)(PDF), 110 Stat. 1214, enacted April 24, 1996, was introduced to the United States Congress in April 1995 as a Senate Bill. The bill was passed with broad bipartisan support by Congress in response to the bombings of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (No. 9487), was a controversial U.S. federal court case that arose out of the American Civil War. It was a test of the authority of the President to suspend "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" under the Constitution's Suspension Clause, when Congress was in recess and therefore unavailable to do so itself. More generally, the case raised questions about the ability of the executive branch to decline enforcement of judicial decisions when the executive believes them to be erroneous and harmful to its own legal powers.
Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled that the use of military tribunals to try civilians when civil courts are operating is unconstitutional. In this particular case, the Court was unwilling to give President Abraham Lincoln's administration the power of military commission jurisdiction, part of the administration's controversial plan to deal with Union dissenters during the American Civil War. Justice David Davis, who delivered the majority opinion, stated that "martial rule can never exist when the courts are open" and confined martial law to areas of "military operations, where war really prevails", and when it was a necessity to provide a substitute for a civil authority that had been overthrown. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase and three associate justices filed a separate opinion concurring with the majority in the judgment, but asserting that Congress had the power to authorize a military commission, although it had not done so in Milligan's case.
A writ of coram nobis is a legal order allowing a court to correct its original judgment upon discovery of a fundamental error that did not appear in the records of the original judgment's proceedings and that would have prevented the judgment from being pronounced. The term coram nobis is Latin for "before us" and the meaning of its full form, quae coram nobis resident, is "which [things] remain in our presence". The writ of coram nobis originated in the courts of common law in the English legal system during the sixteenth century.
Title 28 is the portion of the United States Code that governs the federal judicial system.
Napoleon Beazley was a convicted murderer executed by lethal injection by the State of Texas for the murder of 63-year-old businessman John Luttig in 1994.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes".
Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), decided the same day as Ewing v. California, held that there would be no relief by means of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from a sentence imposed under California's three strikes law as a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. Relying on the reasoning of Ewing and Harmelin v. Michigan, the Court ruled that because no "clearly established" law held that a three-strikes sentence was cruel and unusual punishment, the 50-years-to-life sentence imposed in this case was not cruel and unusual punishment.
In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's confinement under color of law. A petition for habeas corpus is filed with a court that has jurisdiction over the custodian, and if granted, a writ is issued directing the custodian to bring the confined person before the court for examination into those reasons or conditions. The Suspension Clause of the United States Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in Article One, Section 9, clause 2, which demands 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."
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus petition made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Guantánamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control. The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene's detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's detention under color of law. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A persistent standard of indefinite detention without trial and incidents of torture led the operations of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be challenged internationally as an affront to international, and challenged domestically as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, including the right of petition for habeas corpus. In 19 February 2002, Guantanamo detainees petitioned in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention.
In the Philippines, amparo and habeas data are prerogative writs to supplement the inefficacy of the writ of habeas corpus. Amparo means 'protection,' while habeas data is 'access to information.' Both writs were conceived to solve the extensive Philippine extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances since 1999.
Ricardo M. Urbina is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U.S. 113 (2009), was a decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A), the conviction of a state defendant is not "final" if a state court grants an "out-of-time" appeal and the defendant has not yet filed a federal habeas petition.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down ten per curiam opinions during its 2010 term, which began October 4, 2010 and concluded October 1, 2011.
Premo v. Moore, 562 U.S. 115 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the right of individuals to federal habeas corpus relief on state-law claims. In a unanimous ruling, the court held that habeas relief may not be granted with respect to any claim that a state-court has found on the merits unless the state-court decision denying relief involves an "unreasonable application" of "clearly established federal law, as determined by" the Court.
In law, post conviction refers to the legal process which takes place after a trial results in conviction of the defendant. After conviction, a court will proceed with sentencing the guilty party. In the American criminal justice system, once a defendant has received a guilty verdict, he or she can then challenge a conviction or sentence. This takes place through different legal actions, known as filing an appeal or a federal habeas corpus proceeding. The goal of these proceedings is exoneration, or proving a convicted person innocent. If lacking representation, the defendant may consult or hire an attorney to exercise his or her legal rights.
Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court clarified the Sixth Amendment standard for reversing convictions due to ineffective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining. The Court ruled that when a lawyer's ineffective assistance leads to the rejection of a plea agreement, a defendant is entitled to relief if the outcome of the plea process would have been different with competent advice. In such cases, the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires the trial judge to exercise discretion to determine an appropriate remedy.
Tyler v. Cain, 533 U.S. 656 (2001) is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the rule established under Cage v. Louisiana (1990), where the Court held certain jury instructions unconstitutional because the words used did not suggest the degree of proof required by the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, was not "made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court." Tyler is the primary case regarding the retroactivity of new rules to successive habeas petitions.
