<P> The United States inherited habeas corpus from the English common law . In England, the writ was issued in the name of the monarch . When the original thirteen American colonies declared independence, and became a republic based on popular sovereignty, any person, in the name of the people, acquired authority to initiate such writs . The U.S. Constitution specifically includes the habeas procedure in the Suspension Clause (Clause 2), located in Article One, Section 9 . This states that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it". </P> <P> The writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a civil, not criminal, ex parte proceeding in which a court inquires as to the legitimacy of a prisoner's custody . Typically, habeas corpus proceedings are to determine whether the court that imposed sentence on the defendant had jurisdiction and authority to do so, or whether the defendant's sentence has expired . Habeas corpus is also used as a legal avenue to challenge other types of custody such as pretrial detention or detention by the United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement pursuant to a deportation proceeding . </P> <P> Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and Reconstruction for some places or types of cases . During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended habeas corpus . Following the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush attempted to place Guantanamo Bay detainees outside of the jurisdiction of habeas corpus, but the Supreme Court of the United States overturned this action in Boumediene v. Bush . </P> <P> In 1430, King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland granted the Privilege of Jedlnia, which proclaimed, Neminem captivabimus nisi iure victum ("We will not imprison anyone except if convicted by law"). This revolutionary innovation in civil libertarianism gave Polish citizens due process - style rights that did not exist in any other European country for another 250 years . Originally, the Privilege of Jedlnia was restricted to the nobility (the szlachta), but it was extended to cover townsmen in the 1791 Constitution . Importantly, social classifications in the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth were not as rigid as in other European countries; townspeople and Jews were sometimes ennobled . The Privilege of Jedlnia provided broader coverage than many subsequently enacted habeas corpus laws because Poland's nobility constituted an unusually large percentage of the country's total population, which was Europe's largest . As a result, by the 16th century, it was protecting the liberty of between five hundred thousand and a million Poles . </P>

You can only translate a purpose clause one way