Habeas Corpus Limitations

The Executive Branch and Limitations on the Suspension of Habeas Corpus
Rebecca Smith
POL 201 American National Government
Michael Mayo
09/17/2012

Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution states, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in the case of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” The statement may seem fairly straight forward in that all citizens shall have the right to have their case heard by a judge unless they are considered war criminals or the possibility of the person being released would be a hazard to public safety. There are still many debates about this passage in the Constitution on what if any limitations can be presented to the exceptions. These debates
judicial system. Put simply if someone is imprisoned, they have a right to plead their case before a judge that they have been wrongfully imprisoned by our laws. Many of the American Colonies had a similar form of Habeas Corpus written into their statutes prior to the Constitution so the concept was not completely foreign. The delegates at the Constitutional Convention discussed the need for a provision that assured the availability of Habeas Corpus to all citizens and after much debate, they settled on a provision which prohibited the suspension towards detainees held in federal prison. The assumed intent of the framers of the Constitution was to prevent Congress from suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus as was done by the British Parliament which allowed the colonist to be imprisoned without the legal ability to challenge the charges. After the Civil war, The Congressional Committee on Reconstruction feared that Negros would be the target of many false imprisonments and be held in state prisons which would negate any powers the Federal courts would have to extend the Writ of Habeas Corpus. In order to prevent the southern states from abusing the judicial system by imprisoning the newly freed slaves they added a provision to the Reconstruction Act that allowed the
Since 2002 several men that have been labeled as “enemy combatants” have been detained at a U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba known as GITMO. “The Bush administration believed that because the detainees were foreigners and on foreign soil, Constitutional rights would not extend to them.” (D’Anza, J. 2008) “The detainees were considered “unlawful enemy combatants,” not entitled to treatment as prisoners of war (because they did not satisfy such requirements of the Geneva Convention as wearing uniforms and carrying weapons openly) and therefore were subject to interrogation, but also subject to be held until the end of all hostilities.”(Sherman 2009) The Bush administration validated the policy of revoking a detainee’s writ of habeas corpus as an effective use of powers given to the Executive branch through the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act. Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006 which provisions that federal courts no longer have jurisdiction in cases of habeas corpus that pertain to enemy combatants. Despite the placement of the MCA, many of the detainees at Guantanamo have petitioned for the writ of habeas corpus but one in particular made a definitive statement toward Congress and the president on the limitations of