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habeas corpus

habeas corpus

16 9.9
A court order making police bring a person in jail to a judge to check if keeping them is legal
  • noun
  • /ˈheɪbiəs ˈkɔrpəs/
  • Formal
translation icon : hábeas corpus
  • Yee filed a writ of habeas corpus in District Court.
  • writ of habeas corpus
  • federal habeas corpus
  • habeas corpus petition

Finally, the last resort for someone sentenced to death is to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court, where they are.

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Examples

  • Instead, the case has bounced up and down the federal courts on a habeas corpus petition.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Consider Lincoln's famous suspension of habeas corpus during during the Civil War.

  • This flies in the face of habeas corpus, does it not?

  • State criminal cases also dropped substantially, as did federal habeas corpus cases.

    Academic text (1994)
  • The court scheduled the habeas corpus petition for later this afternoon.

  • You think he'll give me a writ of habeas corpus?

  • The final hope of the Friends of Richard Lapointe is a habeas corpus suit that was filed in federal district court this past June.

    Academic text (1997)
  • In old age, Jefferson continued to insist that the right of habeas corpus was indispensable to a citizen's liberty.

    Academic text (2016)
  • Unlike the Founders, during the debate on ratification, Jefferson consistently and strongly endorsed the writ of habeas corpus in all cases.

    Academic text (2016)
  • The lawyer submitted a habeas corpus petition to ensure his client was not unlawfully detained.

Synonyms

writ of habeas corpus
vshabeas corpus
  • Formal
4 9.9

An order to bring a prisoner before a judge to check if being held is legal

is the same legal order but used as the general formal name

Surface Forms

habeas corpus singular

Morphology

habeas + corpus

Habeas corpus is a fixed Latin legal formula whose procedural meaning ('a court order requiring a detained person to be brought before a judge') is specialized and not predictable from its literal parts for a typical B1 learner. The constituents are non‑English/archaised Latin terms and the phrase functions as legal jargon rather than a standard compositional English expression, so its meaning is effectively idiomatic and opaque to learners.

Etymology

Habeas corpus comes from old Latin words habeas and corpus, and literally means 'you should have the body', a judge's order to bring a person into court. So today habeas corpus is used to make the authorities show and explain why someone is being held, to protect people from being kept in jail for no good reason.