habeas corpus

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Do you march to the beat of a different drummer? Discover
the origin of this term in our Dictionary of Allusions.
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The Word of the Day for March 25 is:

habeas corpus   \HAY-bee-us-KOR-pus\   noun 
    *1 : any of several common-law writs issued to bring a 
party before a court or judge; especially : a writ for 
inquiring into the lawfulness of the restraint of a person who 
is imprisoned or detained in another's custody
     2 : the right of a citizen to obtain a writ of habeas 
corpus as a protection against illegal imprisonment

Example sentence:
     Sam's lawyers have filed a writ of habeas corpus to prove 
that his conviction was based on illegally obtained evidence.

Did you know? 
     "You should have the body." That's the literal meaning of 
the Latin "habeas corpus," but to anyone wrongfully imprisoned, 
it can mean a chance to correct a violation of personal 
liberty. In simplest terms, a writ of habeas corpus is an order 
commanding one who holds a person in custody to bring that 
individual before the court for some specific reason. The most 
common is "habeas corpus ad subjiciendum," also known as the 
Great Writ, by which an imprisoned person can challenge the 
legality of his or her custody before the court. Such orders 
were part of British legal systems at least as long ago as the 
reign of Henry VII (1485-1509), and the right to habeas corpus 
was considered so fundamental that it was written into Article 
I of the United States Constitution.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.