The Privilege Of The Writ Of Habeas Corpus

The Text

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.

What It Says

The government must justify holding you before a court. That guarantee can only be suspended during rebellion or invasion, and only when public safety actually requires it.

What It Protects Against

Indefinite detention without charge. Habeas corpus is the mechanism that forces the jailer to state a lawful reason for the imprisonment, which is what separates detention from disappearance.

Sourced to a ratification-era document. See Contemporaneous Defense below.

Problem Addressed

Habeas corpus was already established in English law and regarded by the founders as the single most important procedural protection an individual holds against the state.

Contemporaneous Defense

Blackstone described the writ as the great and efficacious remedy in all cases of illegal confinement, a characterization the founding generation cited directly. The clause appears in Article I, Section 9, the section that lists what the government may not do rather than what it may.