HABEAS CORPUS (Lat. that you have the body). A writ directed to the person detaining another, and commanding him to produce the body of the prisoner at a certain time and place, with the day and cause of his caption and detention, to do, submit to, and receive whatsoever the court or judge award ing the writ shall consider in that behalf., 2. This is the most famous writ in the law; and, having for many centuries been employed to remove, illegal restraint upon personal liberty, no matter by what power imposed, it is often called the great writ of liberty. It takes its name from the cha racteristic words it contained when the process and records of the English courts were written in Latin : Prtecipimus tibi quad CORPUS A B in cvstodia vestra detentuni, lit dicitur, una cum cerium captionis et detentionis 871Ie, quocunque nomine ideas A B cen seatur in eirdem HABEAS carom nobis aped ll'cstns. do. ad subjiciendnm et recipiendum ea, guts curia nostra de eo ad tune et ibidem ordinari cantigerit it hoc parte, etc.
3. There were several other writs which con tained the words habeas corpus ; hut they were distinguished from this and from one another by the specific terms declaring the object of the writ, which terms are still retained in the nomenclature of writs : as, habeas corpus ad. respondendum, ad testificandvm, ad satisfaciendum, ad prosequendum, and ad et recipiendum, ad dcliberandum et recipiendum.
This writ was in like manner designated as ha beas corpus ad subjiciendum et reeipiendum ; but, having acquired in public esteem a marked ance by reason of the nobler uses to which it has been devoted, it has so far appropriated the generic term to itself that it is now; by way of eminence, commonly called The Writ of Habeas Corpus.
4. The date of its origin cannot now be tained. Traces of its existence are found in the Year Book 48 Ed. III. 22; and it appears to have been familiar to, and well understood by, the judges in the reign of Henry VI. In its early history it appears to have been used as a means of relief from private restraint. The earliest prece dents where it was used against the crown are in the reign of Henry VII. Afterwards the use of it became more frequent, and in the time of Charles I. it was held an admitted constitutional remedy. Hurd, Hab. Corp. 145.
In process of time, abuses crept into the prac tice, which in some measure impaired the useful ness of the writ. The party imprisoning was at liberty to delay his obedience to the first writ, and might wait till a second and third were issued be fore he produced the party ; and many other vexa tious shifts were praotised to detain state prisoners in custody. 3 Blackstone, Comm. 135.
5. Greater promptitude in its execution was re quired to render the writ efficacious. The subject
was accordingly brought forward in parliament in 1668, renewed from time to time until 16791 when the celebrated Habeas Corpus Act of 31 Car. II. was passed. The passage of this act has been made the theme of the highest praise and congra tulation by British authors, and is even said to have "extinguished all the resources of oppression." Hurd, Hab. Corp. 93.
This act being limited to cases of commitments for "criminal or supposed criminal matters," every other species of restraint of personal -liberty was left to the ordinary remedy at common law ; but, doubts being entertained as to the extent of the jurisdiction of the judge to inquire into the truth of thb return to the writ in such cases, an attempt was made, in 1757, in the house of lords, to ren der the jurisdiction more remedial. It was opposed by Lord Mansfield as unnecessary, and failed, for the time, of success. It was subsequently renewed, however; and the act of 56 Geo. III. c. 100 supplies, in England, all tho needed legislation in cases not embraced by the act of 31 Car. II. Hurd, Hab. Corp.
6. The English colonists in America regarded the privilege of the writ as one of the " dearest birthrights of Britons ;" and sufficicrit indications exist that it was frequently resorted to. The denial of it ih Massachusetts by Judge Dudley in 16O9 to Rev. John Wise, imprisoned for resisting the collection of an oppressive and illegal tax, was made the subject of a civil action against the judge, and was, moreover, denounced, as one of the griev. ances of the people, in a pamphlet published ill, 1689. on the authority of "the gentlemen, mer• chants, and inhabitants of Boston and the country adjacent." In New York in 1707 it served to effect the release of the Presbyterian ministers Makemio and Hampton from an illegal warrant of arrest issued by the governor, Cornbury, fur preaching the gospel without license. In New Jersey, in 1710 the assembly denounced one of the judges fur re fusing the writ to Thomas Gordon, which, they said, was the " undoubted right and great privi lege of the subject." In South Carolina in 1692 the assembly adopted the act of 31 Car. II. This act was extended to Virginia by Queen Anne early in her reign, while in the assembly of Maryland in 1725 the benefit of its provisions was claimed, in dependent of royal favor, as the "birthright of the inhabitants." The refusal of parliament in 1774 to extend the law of habeas corpus to Canada was denounced by the continental congress in Septem ber of that year as oppressive, and was subse quently recounted in the Declaration of Independ ence as one of the manifestations on the- part of the British government of tyranny over the colo nies. Hurd, Hab. Corp. 109-120.