What Court (if any) Decided Ex parte Merryman?—A Correction for Justice Sotomayor (and others)

• Published in: British Journal of American Legal Studies 2024-02, Vol.13 (1), p.43-66
• Main Author: Tillman, Seth Barrett
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Court hearings & proceedings; District courts; Federal court decisions; Habeas corpus; Judges & magistrates; Public hearings; Supreme Court decisions; Trials
• ISSN: 2719-5864; 2049-4092; 2719-5864
• DOI: 10.2478/bjals-2023-0007

[...]after Chief Justice Taney ruled [in Ex parte Merryman] (in a case he heard alone, not with the full Court, and that was filed with the United States District Court) that President Abraham Lincoln’s unilateral suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was unconstitutional, President Lincoln maintained the suspension and did not release the detainee in question.1 Here, Justice Sotomayor made three claims. [...]Sotomayor asserted that Merryman was “filed with the United States District Court”—she was not correct about that. [...]Taney’s opinion has been reported, on many, if not most, occasions (e.g., in the Federal Cases reporter) as a circuit court case.14 Still, there are (other) good reasons contemporaries might have been confused on this point. 36 Taney issued his oral opinion in Merryman from the bench while he was on or riding circuit,37 that is, away from his home chambers which was in the nation’s capital, but not in his capacity as a circuit court judge or as a judge of the circuit court. Because Taney’s power to decide Merryman was a special statutory authority committed to him as an individual Supreme Court Justice, that is, because he was not acting for any duly constituted court,38 his decision is properly characterized as “at chambers”.