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The evisceration of habeas corpus in American jurisprudence

Let me point readers to a fascinating academic review by American University Prof. Steven Vladek of a book I just ordered today online: Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire, by Paul Halliday. Here's a excerpt describing the impressive primary research behind Halliday's project:There is relatively little in the Constitution?s drafting history or ratification debates to illuminate the meaning of ?the Privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus.? Still, most jurists and commentators now seem to agree on the constitutional floor. As Justice Stevens put it in 2001, ?at the absolute minimum, the Suspension Clause protects the writ ?as it existed in 1789.?? And yet, even that limited point of consensus only begs a separate question: what was the scope of the writ in English law in 1789, the practice from which we presume the Founders meant to borrow?In Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire, Paul Halliday, a University of Virginia historian, provides an answer to that question (and many others) by comprehensively surveying the scope of English habeas practice during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).