Law Commons^™

Making Habeas Work: A Legal History, Eric M. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

A reconsideration of the writ of habeas corpus casts new light on a range of current issues

Habeas corpus, the storied Great Writ of Liberty, is a judicial order that requires government officials to produce a prisoner in court, persuade an independent judge of the correctness of their claimed factual and legal justifications for the individual’s imprisonment, or else release the captive. Frequently the officials resist being called to account. Much of the history of the rule of law, including the history being made today, has emerged from the resulting clashes.

This book, heavily based on primary sources from the …

Making Habeas Work: A Legal History, Eric M. Freedman

Other Lectures and Presentations

The attached materials represent an early draft of the first three chapters of Professor Freedman's publication from NYU Press, Making Habeas Work: A Legal History. This is the material on which this faculty workshop is based.

"A Republic If You Can Keep It", Eric Lane

Constitution Day Lectures

On this day, over 200 years ago, thirty-nine brave delegates of the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created, the U.S. Constitution.

This year, Eric Lane, Dean of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law and the Eric J. Schmertz Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Public Service at Hofstra University, gave a presentation, “A Republic If You Can Keep It.” The event was held in the Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, 1st Floor Axinn Library.

No Execution If Four Justices Object, Eric M. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

I. DRIVING A NAIL WITH A SCREWDRIVER IN CAPITAL CASES

Today’s Supreme Court defines its role as choosing from the thousands of cases pressed upon it annually those very few that will best serve as vehicles for the resolution of legal issues of general importance.

1. A. Ordinary Cases

(1) The necessary consequence is that some litigants will seek review and fail to attain it for reasons having nothing to do with the merits of their claims (e.g., the Court desires to have the issue percolate for a while in the lower courts or in the public arena), and will find …

Great Ironies Of History: The Peculiar Historic Fable Of Marbury V. Madison, Eric J. Beckerman

Hofstra Law Student Works

On the first day of virtually every course in American Constitutional Law the case of Marbury v. Madison is taught. Students are usually told that this is the case that established what we refer to today as judicial review. They are instructed as to the continuing controversy of how "The Great Chief Justice," John Marshall, created out of thin air the power or the courts to pronounce acts of the other branches of government unconstitutional. A cursory review of the bare facts of the case usually accompanies the legal analysis of the opinion generally followed by extensive commentary and criticism …

Conscription And The Constitution: The Original Understanding, Leon Friedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The general words of the Constitution-famous phrases such as "due process," "freedom of speech," "interstate commerce, and "raise and support armies"-are not self-evident concepts. As Justice Frankfurter said, "The language of the [Constitution] is to be read not as barren words found in a dictionary but as symbols of historic experience illumined by the presuppositions of those who employed them. Not what words did Madison and Hamilton use, but what was it in their minds which they conveyed?" While the framers obviously could not have foreseen the discovery of electromagnetic radio waves or atomic energy, and had no "intent" concerning …