Atkins v. Michigan

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ANNA DIGGS TAYLOR, District Judge.

“We do well to bear in mind the extraordinary prestige of the Great Writ, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, in Anglo-American jurisprudence: ‘the most celebrated writ in the English law.’ 3 Blackstone Commentaries 129. It is ‘a writ antecedent to statute, and throwing its root deep into the genius of our common law . . . It is perhaps the most important writ known to the constitutional law of England, affording as it does a swift and imperative remedy in all cases of illegal restraint or confinement. It is of immemorial antiquity, an…