Writ - United States Law

United States Law

Early law of the United States inherited the traditional English writ system, in the sense of a rigid set of forms of relief that the law courts were authorized to grant. The All Writs Act authorizes United States federal courts to "issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law." However, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, adopted in 1938 to govern civil procedure in the United States district courts, provide that there is only one form of action in civil cases, and explicitly abolish certain writs by name. Relief formerly available by a writ is now normally available by a lawsuit (civil action) or a motion in a pending civil action. Nonetheless, a few writs have escaped abolition and remain in current use in the U.S. federal courts:

• The writ of habeas corpus, usually used to test the legality of a prisoner's detention, has expressly been preserved. It is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution (Art. 1, § 9, cl. 2). In the United States federal courts, the writ is most often used to review the constitutionality of criminal convictions rendered by state courts. The writs application does not stop there, the Supreme Court has held the writ of habeas corpus open to all individuals held by the federal government, including Guantanamo Bay detainees. See Boumediene v. Bush.
• By statute, the Supreme Court of the United States uses the writ of certiorari to review cases from the United States courts of appeals or from the state courts.
• In extraordinary circumstances, the United States court of appeals can use the common-law writ of prohibition under the All Writs Act to control proceedings in the district courts.
• Some courts have held that in rare circumstances in a federal criminal case, a United States district court may use the common-law writ of error coram nobis under the All Writs Act to set aside a conviction when no other remedy is available.
• The United States district courts normally follow state- in the United States federal courts but are almost never used in practice. In modern times, the All Writs Act is most commonly used as authority for federal courts to issue injunctions to protect their jurisdiction or effectuate their judgments.

The situation in the courts of the various U.S. states varies from state to state but is often similar to that in the federal courts. Some states continue to use writ procedures, such as quo warranto, that have been abolished as a procedural matter in federal courts.

In an attempt to purge Latin from the language of the law, California law has for many years used the term writ of mandate in place of writ of mandamus, and writ of review in place of writ of certiorari.