Introduction. The power of the writ -- Common law, royal courts -- Parliament and the king -- The Americanization of habeas -- Constitutional counterrevolution -- Fugitive slaves and liberty laws -- Suspension and civil war -- The writ reconstructed -- Lynch mob justice -- The writ in world war -- Federal activism and retreat -- Mass roundups and ad hoc secret detentions -- Enemy aliens and Bush's prerogative -- The dance of the court and the executive -- Obama's legal black hole -- The great writ's paradox of power and liberty -- A remedy in search of a principle -- The modern detention state and the future of the writ
Summary
This book tells the story of habeas corpus from medieval England to modern America