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Habeas Corpus Essay

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On September 20th, 2001 nine days after the Twin Towers President George W. Bush announced to all Americans that the nation has begun the war on terror. With any war there will be casualties as well as prisoners captured who have essential information to saving lives. Some of the prisoners caught were considered extremely dangerous and sent to Guantanamo Bay. At one point in the war on terror Guantanamo Bay held some of the worlds highest-ranking criminals in the world. Many people questioned the government’s legitimacy of holding these prisoners and believed they should be given the right to a fair trial. Congress passed “the Military Commissions Act (2006), which contained a provision barring the federal courts from hearing habeas corpus …show more content…

The Founding Fathers took the English common law and used it as a way of protecting colonist before they were wrongfully imprisoned without just cause before trial. When the colonies were broke away from English rule the belief of popular sovereignty allowed a person to initiate a writ in the name of the people. This was different because the courts issued a writ in the name of the king. In 1787 when the United States Constitution was written the Founding Fathers imputed the writ of Habeas Corpus in it. It was imputed in article one section nine it stated, “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.” (Federman, 2007, Pg. 1) Adding this to the Constitution showed how strongly the Founding Fathers believed that a person must be jailed with evidence and not just accusation. In 1789, Congress allowed federal courts to issue Habeas Corpus to prisoners who were going to have a trial in federal court or those in federal custody. In 1807, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts could not issue Habeas Corpus to prisoners of state or local governments. Congress in 1867 allowed prisoners of state governments to file Habeas Corpus if their imprisonment was in violation of the Constitution, a treaty, or law. In 1871, The Supreme Court stated that a state courts cannot free a federal prisoner. On September 11th, 2001 Congress authorized the war on terror and with it the Authorization for the Use of Military

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