“Let the Body Be Brought...” In the United States, Britain, and many other English-speaking countries, the law of Habeas Corpus guarantees that nobody can be held in prison without trial. Habeas Corpus became a law because of a wild party held in 1621 at the London home of a notoriously rowdy lady, Alice Robinson. When a constable appeared and asked her and her guests to quiet down, Mrs. Robinson allegedly swore at him so violently that he arrested her, and a local justice of the peace committed her to jail.
When she was finally brought to trial, Mrs. Robinson’s story of her treatment in prison caused an outcry. She had been put on a punishment diet of bread and water, forced to sleep on the bare earth, stripped, and given 50 lashes. Such treatment was barbaric even by the harsh standards of the time; what made it worse was that Mrs. Robinson was pregnant.
Public anger was so great that she was acquitted, the constable who had arrested her without a warrant was himself sent to prison, and the justice of the peace was severely reprimanded. And the case, along with other similar cases, led to the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act in Britain in 1679. The law is still on the British statute books, and a version of it is used in the United States, where the law was regarded as such an important guarantee of liberty that Article 1 of the Constitution declares that “Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion”.
Habeas Corpus is part of a Latin phrase - Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum - that means “Let the body be brought before the judge.” In effect, a writ of Habeas Corpus is an order in the name of the people (or, in Britain, of the sovereign) to produce an imprisoned person in court at once.