Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire

by Paul D. Halliday

Book Overview

We call habeas corpus the Great Writ of Liberty. But it was actually a writ of power. In a work based on an unprecedented study of thousands of cases across more than five hundred years, Paul Halliday provides a sweeping revisionist account of the world's most revered legal device.

In the decades around 1600, English judges used ideas about royal power to empower themselves to protect the king's subjects. The key was not the prisoner's "right"...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674064208
• ISBN13: 9780674064201
• Release Date: April 2012
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.9" x 9.0"