Habeas corpus and the Supreme Court
Habeas corpus, meaning "you have the body," is a legal principle that originated in England and is enshrined in Article I of the U.S. Constitution. It serves as an important safeguard for individuals detained by the state, ensuring their constitutional right to liberty is upheld. In the U.S., habeas corpus allows individuals who are in custody and have exhausted their direct appeals to challenge the legality of their imprisonment, focusing not on their guilt or innocence but on whether their constitutional rights were violated during the trial process.
The Supreme Court has played a significant role in shaping the rules surrounding habeas corpus, particularly during the Warren Court era (1953-1969), which expanded its scope to protect individual liberties. However, this expansive view faced challenges from later courts, which adopted a more restrictive approach, concerned about the volume of habeas cases and the implications for judicial finality. Key rulings, such as Stone v. Powell and Teague v. Lane, further narrowed the grounds on which habeas corpus claims could be made.
In more recent developments, the Supreme Court affirmed that habeas corpus rights also extend to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, illustrating the evolving landscape of this legal principle. Despite these changes, the conservative stance on habeas corpus in cases involving state convictions has persisted into the 2010s, reflecting ongoing debates about the balance between individual rights and judicial efficiency.
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Subject Terms
Habeas corpus and the Supreme Court
Definition: Right of prisoners to have the constitutionality of their imprisonment reviewed by a federal court.
Significance: Although the right of habeas corpus is guaranteed by both the US Constitution and federal statutes, the Supreme Court has played a significant role in determining the scope and limits of habeas review.
Habeas corpus, literally “you have the body,” originated as a common-law writ in England. In the United States, the writ of habeas corpus was guaranteed in Article I of the US Constitution. Federal statutes enacted in 1789 and 1867 empowered federal courts to hear habeas cases for federal and state prisoners.
Habeas corpus, often called a collateral attack, is a limited right. Its basic purpose is to ensure that a person’s constitutional right to liberty is not being violated. It is available only to people who are in custody and who have already exhausted the direct appeals of their conviction. It is technically a civil action rather than criminal, and the prisoner’s actual guilt or innocence is not the issue. Instead, the prisoner must prove that something about his or her incarceration violates the Constitution. Most frequently, the prisoner will claim constitutional errors occurred during the original trial (for example, that the jury was improperly chosen) or that there is something unconstitutional about the sentence given (for example, that it is cruel and unusual punishment). Prisoners who succeed with their habeas claims are not typically set free but instead are given a new trial or new sentence. Significantly, even if the prisoner was convicted and incarcerated by a state, habeas corpus proceedings may be brought in federal court.
The Warren Court
Although the right to habeas corpus is as old as the Constitution, the rules relating to the scope of habeas review were primarily set by the Supreme Court during the second half of the twentieth century. During the years when Earl Warren was chief justice of the Supreme Court (1953–1969), the Court took an expansive view of the right. A majority of the justices believed that this was necessary because of the extreme importance of the right to liberty. Broad reviews of trial courts’ decisions would protect the right to liberty and ensure that correct decisions were reached.
An example of the Warren Court’s approach to habeas is the case of Fay v. Noia (1963), in which the Court upheld Noia’s habeas challenge of his felony murder conviction. Noia’s conviction had been based entirely on a confession that had been coerced in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., writing for the majority, stated that habeas was the “ultimate remedy” in the struggle for personal liberty.
Not all jurists and legal scholars agreed with the Warren Court’s approach to habeas law. In fact, during the tenures of Chief Justices Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, a majority of the justices adopted a considerably narrower view of the scope of habeas corpus relief. The primary reason was their concern over the number of habeas cases federal courts were compelled to hear. In addition to burdening the courts, this interfered with the finality of decisions, encouraged frivolous claims, and contributed to the drawing out of legal proceedings. In death penalty cases, for example, habeas challenges could delay executions for decades. Furthermore, these justices believed, federalism required that federal courts give great respect to state courts’ decisions.
A Changing View
One of the most significant post-Warren habeas decisions was Stone v. Powell (1976). Defendants in two different cases challenged their convictions on the grounds that the trial courts had admitted evidence that was the product of unconstitutional searches and seizures. The Court held that prisoners cannot raise Fourth Amendment issues in habeas cases if they had a fair chance to litigate those issues in the state courts.
The Court further limited habeas rights in Teague v. Lane (1989), a case that dealt with the retroactivity of court decisions. If a federal court announces a new rule of criminal procedure after a prisoner’s conviction is final, that prisoner may not take advantage of that rule in subsequent habeas claims. The reason given for this decision was the interest in preserving the finality of decisions; without such a rule, it was argued, established convictions would be perpetually subject to review as the law evolved.
In 1993 in Herrera v. Collins, the Court again endorsed a restricted view of the right to habeas corpus. Herrera had been sentenced to death for murdering a police officer. Several years after he had exhausted his direct appeals and after he had filed several unsuccessful habeas petitions, he brought a new habeas claim in federal court, claiming that new evidence had appeared that would prove his actual innocence of the crime. The Court held that he was not entitled to habeas relief based solely on a claim of actual innocence; because he could point out no procedural errors at his original trial, his death sentence was affirmed.
By the end of the twentieth century, the Court’s conservative approach to habeas corpus was well established. This approach was supported by Congress, which in 1996 passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Among other things, the act required that habeas claims be brought no more than one year after a claimant had exhausted his or her state appeals and generally limited prisoners to a single habeas petition.
In the 2008 case of Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled that the right of habeas corpus also extended to detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military detention camps in Cuba. Laws such as the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 had previously denied such rights to persons detained as enemy combatants outside of US soil, but the Supreme Court's decision found that the United States' partial sovereignty over the territory entitled the prisoners to file habeas petitions. However, in habeas cases involving federal review of state criminal trials, the Supreme Court's conservative attitude has continued into the 2010s.
Bibliography
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Dolan, Maura. "Clashing Courts: Law Restricts Federal Judges' Ability to Intervene in State Criminal Cases." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 5 Sept. 2015. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
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Emanuel, S. L. Criminal Procedure. Aspen: Aspen, 2003. Print.
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