John Merryman, a Maryland resident, was seized from his home at about 2:00 a.m. by an armed force acting under military orders. He was taken to Fort McHenry and held by General George Cadwalader. Merryman's counsel sought the order authorizing his arrest, but the military refused to provide it. The stated accusations were only general allegations of treason and rebellion, with no sworn proof, identified witnesses, or specified criminal acts.
Merryman applied directly to Chief Justice Taney, sitting as circuit justice, for a writ of habeas corpus under section 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Cadwalader's return did not materially deny the arrest and confinement. Instead, he refused to produce Merryman, asserting that the President had authorized suspension of the writ and had delegated discretion to military officers to withhold compliance. Because the military resisted the court's process, Taney ordered the proceedings and opinion filed in the circuit court and sent under seal to the President for action.
Issue #1
Whether a federal judge could issue habeas corpus to inquire into Merryman's military detention.
Holding
Yes. The Judiciary Act of 1789 authorized federal courts, Supreme Court justices, and district judges to issue habeas corpus to examine the legal cause of a person's commitment.
Reasoning
Taney treated the application as a conventional exercise of judicial authority under section 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. That statute gave federal judicial officers power to require a custodian to bring a prisoner before the court so the court could determine whether the imprisonment was lawful.
The writ was especially appropriate because Merryman alleged that he had been taken from his home and confined without a lawful warrant or a stated, legally supported charge. A custodian could not defeat the judicial inquiry merely by offering broad and unsupported accusations of treason or rebellion.
Issue #2
Whether the President may suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or delegate that power to a military officer.
Holding
No. Only Congress may suspend the privilege, and only in a case of rebellion or invasion when public safety requires it.
Reasoning
The Suspension Clause appears in Article I, the article establishing and limiting Congress's legislative powers. Taney read that placement, together with the Constitution's careful division of powers, as assigning the suspension decision to the legislative branch rather than to the President.
Article II does not expressly give the President authority to suspend habeas corpus. In Taney's view, an emergency could not create a power that the Constitution had not delegated, particularly a power so dangerous to individual liberty.
Taney relied on the Constitution's history and on English practice. Habeas corpus had long served as a protection against executive imprisonment, and even the English Crown could not suspend the privilege without Parliament's authorization. The framers, he reasoned, would not silently give an American President a greater power over personal liberty than Parliament permitted the Crown.
He also invoked Justice Story's view that Congress holds the power to decide whether the constitutionally required emergency exists, and Chief Justice Marshall's statement in Ex parte Bollman that suspension of the judiciary's habeas authority is a question for the legislature. Until Congress acted, courts remained bound to enforce the statute authorizing the writ.
Issue #3
Whether military officers may arrest and imprison a civilian outside military law without judicial process when the civil courts are open and able to act.
Holding
No. The military could not replace the civil judiciary by arresting and holding Merryman without lawful judicial process.
Reasoning
The Fifth Amendment forbids deprivation of liberty without due process of law, and the Fourth Amendment requires warrants based on probable cause supported by oath and particularized descriptions. Merryman's nighttime seizure, unsupported by a disclosed warrant or specific sworn charge, did not satisfy those constitutional protections.
The Constitution also guarantees an accused person a prompt public jury trial, notice of the accusation, confrontation of witnesses, compulsory process, and counsel. Taney stressed that even a valid congressional suspension of habeas corpus would not itself authorize the military trial or indefinite military detention of a civilian who was not subject to the Articles of War.
Civil judicial officers in Maryland were available: the district judge, commissioner, district attorney, and marshal were all nearby in Baltimore. There had been no obstruction to federal civil process other than the military's own resistance. If evidence supported a federal charge, the military should have presented it to the district attorney and judicial officers, who could have issued a warrant and conducted the legally required proceedings.
The President's duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed did not permit him to execute criminal law through military arrests independent of the courts. That duty required executive assistance to the judiciary when necessary to enforce judicial process, not executive displacement of judicial authority.
Taney warned that allowing the Army to decide what conduct constituted treason or rebellion, what evidence justified arrest, and how long a civilian could be confined would make liberty depend on an army officer's discretion. That result was incompatible with a government of laws and with the founding principle that the military must remain subordinate to civil authority.