This article is the first part of a projected three-part work
based on the extensive exploration of archival sources in
America and England that has been conducted in the past several
years by myself and other researchers. It advances two key
claims: First, in researching the history of habeas corpus we
need to get beyond the label "habeas corpus." The constitutional
importance of the writ is in its function not its name. Demands
for release from unlawful imprisonment could be made in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by seeking a variety of
writs or even by pleadings that asked for no particular writ at
all. Hence for Suspension Clause purposes we should adopt a
functional definition of "habeas corpus" to mean a demand,
however denominated, challenging the legal basis of a detention
and calling upon the custodian to justify it. Second, the
broader group of cases thus defined shares important features of
judicial methodology. The judges worked vigorously (a) to
resolve the case speedily on a fact-speci