"This is an engaging book and an important addition to the
literature on judicial decision-making, constitutional law, and
individual rights and protections."
-- "The Law and Politics Book Review"
"Freedman's approach is refreshingly different. He has greatly
expanded our knowledge about three critical events in the
development of habeas corpus doctrine....quite
extraordinary."
--"H-Net Book Review"
"An original and important document for historians and advocates
alike."
--"The Historian"
"Freedman's lively prose and careful analysis of early debates
and research into the politics, passions and history of the times
give us a new picture of the background to habeas corpus as we know
it now."
--"New York Law Journal"
"Habeas Corpus is a trustworthy account by a distinguished legal
historian. It serves both scholars who wish to revisit the
underpinnings of habeas corpus as well as beginners seeking to
understand what this process has meant to our system."
--"Legal Times"
"Legal analysis at its best."
--Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence
and Political Science, Amherst College
Habeas Corpus is the process by which state
prisoners--particularly those on death row--appeal to federal
courts to have their convictions overturned. Its proper role in our
criminal justice system has always been hotly contested, especially
in the wake of 1996 legislation curtailing the ability of prisoners
to appeal their sentences.
In this timely volume, Eric M. Freedman reexamines four of the
Supreme Court's most important habeas corpus rulings: one by Chief
Justice John Marshall in 1807 concerning Aaron Burr's conspiracy,
two arising from thetraumatic national events of the 1915 Leo Frank
case and the 1923 cases growing out of murderous race riots in
Elaine County, Arkansas, and one case from 1953 that dramatized
some of the ugliest features of the Southern justice of the period.
In each instance, Freeman uncovers new original sources and tells
the stories of the cases through such documents as the Justices'
draft opinions and the memos of law clerk William H. Rehnquist. In
bracing and accessible language, Freedman then presents an
interpretation that rewrites the conventional view.
Building on these results, he challenges legalistic limits on
habeas corpus and demonstrates how a vigorous writ is central to
implementing the fundamental conceptions of individual liberty and
constrained government power that underlie the Constitution.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!