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What is writ of habeas corpus?

The writ (document) of habeas corpus is a legal code stating that a person cannot be arrested and held without first being taken before a judge. The judge will then determine whether such detention complies with the laws of the land. (Habeas corpus is the Latin phrase for "you have to have the body.") The concept dates to the Magna Carta (a document guaranteeing some civil and political rights), which was created in England in 1215. Article 39 of the Magna Carta states that "No freemen [citizen] shall be taken or imprisoned, or exiled or in any way destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." In 1679 the Habeas Corpus Amendment Act re-enforced the writ and added that the king or queen cannot detain a person unless Parliament (the law-making body of Great Britain) or the courts agree. In colonial America, the writ was important as a safeguard against...

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1. Law
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   2. What is civil law?
   3. What is common law?
   4. What is the only U.S. state that does not use common law?
   5. What was trial by ordeal?
   6. What is writ of habeas corpus?
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   10. Who was the first justice of the U.S. Supreme Court?
   11. What were Jim Crow laws?
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   6. Who was Mata Hari?
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   8. What was the Scopes "Monkey Trial"?
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   13. What was the lasting effect of the Clarence Earl Gideon trials?
   14. Why was Nelson Mandela sent to prison?
   15. What was Roe vs. Wade?
   16. What was ABSCAM?
   17. Did a dingo kill Azaria Chamberlain?
   18. What was meant by "the" trial of the twentieth century?

1. Napoleon Bonaparte