Word: writs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...bothering much with prosecutions or convictions. Fed up in 1679, Parliament drew on earlier common law practices and passed its celebrated Habeas Corpus Act, which provided that anyone keeping someone in custody could be required to "produce the body" and show that he was legally holding it. The Great Writ has since spread to include attacks on all manner of wrongful custody-from improper confinement in mental institutions to a divorced father's spiriting away of his children. Today all 50 U.S. states permit habeas corpus petitions (or their like), and so does federal law. But while...
...result has been a constant shifting in the rights that the writ has been used to protect, particularly when federal courts review state convictions. Beginning in 1953 the Supreme Court handed down a series of decisions that have allowed lower federal courts to check over every constitutional claim, even if it had been fully litigated in state proceedings. "The writ wasn't supposed to be an appeal, but it has basically become another level of appellate review," says Columbia's Uviller. Prisoners like Lloyd Powell and David Rice began raining petitions on federal courts. The total last year...
...firm will now petition the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari requesting the Massachusetts First Circuit Court of Appeals to certify the record of its decision last year to uphold the Phase Two busing orders handed down by Federal District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity last spring, Gleason said...
...mundane matters of nature. No such constraints apply to the people involved with The Wilby Conspiracy, which features a proper white engineer (Michael Caine) and a black revolutionary (Poitier) dashing about South Africa with a cache of hot diamonds. Director Ralph Nelson (Lilies of the Field) and his writ ers evoke mocking memories of The Defiant Ones by giving Poitier his custom ary handcuffs and a weak bladder to go along with them. This combination of circumstances results in a certain amount of anguish, requiring the reluctant assistance of his unfettered friend (the exemplary Caine...
...inveterately confusing, has to do with Jonathan E. bucking the corporate biggies and refusing to retire on command. Director Norman Jewison (Jesus Christ Superstar) and Screenwriter William Harrison champion nonconformity and the glories of individuality against a faceless state as zealously as if they had just discovered these notions writ large on a fiery tablet. Only those for whom these ideas are also a revelation will appreciate the cautions that are strewn throughout the film like pennants waving in the cheap seats...