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- Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9487), is a well-known and controversial U.S. federal court case that arose out of the American Civil War. It was a test of the authority of the President to suspend "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" under the Constitution's Suspension Clause, when Congress was in recess and therefore unavailable to do so itself. More generally, the case raised questions about the ability of the executive branch to decline enforcement of judicial decisions when the executive believes them to be erroneous and harmful to its own legal powers. John Merryman was a prominent planter from Baltimore County, Maryland, who had been arrested at his rural plantation. Held prisoner in Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor, he was kept inaccessible to the judiciary and to civilian legal authorities generally. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled in this case the authority to suspend habeas corpus lay exclusively with Congress. The Executive Branch, including the United States Army, under the authority of the President of the United States as Commander-in-Chief, did not comply with Taney's Merryman opinion. Taney filed his Merryman decision with the United States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, but it is unclear if Taney's decision was a circuit court decision. One view, based in part on Taney's handwritten copy of his decision in Merryman, is that Taney heard the habeas action under special authority granted to federal judges by Section 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. According to this view, Merryman was an in-chambers opinion. Due to its vague jurisdictional locus and hastened disposition, aspects of the Merryman decision remain contested to this day. (en)
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