Re:If people could READ (Score 1)

That is the nub of the issue. Saying that habeas corpus shall not be abridged is an acknowledgement that it is older than the constitution. I'm not sure that it is actually common law so much as part of the magna carta. Wasn't that signed in 1215? Or perhaps my knowledge of history is worse than I thought, but what's a few hundred years either way? Anyone who wants to turn the legal clock back 800 years, to where you could be thrown into a dungeon with no recourse, is by definition the worst kind of scoundrel. After that, there's really nothing more to say.