For nearly eight hundred years the writ of habeas corpus has limited the executive in the
Anglo-American legal tradition from imprisoning citizens and subjects with impunity. The writ
empowers the judiciary to determine whether an arrest has been made with just cause and where
appropriate to award prisoners their freedom. For this reason the eighteenth-century jurist
William Blackstone described the writ of habeas corpus as a bulwark of our liberties and
theEnglish Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 as a second Magna Carta. Amanda L. Tyler traces the
history of habeas corpus from its origins in English law to its spread throughout the world and
its incorporation in the American constitutional framework giving special attention to its
application at variousflashpoints in recent history including during World War II and the War
on Terror.
