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Glossary

This glossary defines the attributes used to structure data from the habeas petitions. Questions about the relational structure of the data and functionality of the database website are addressed in the Code Book.

Primary Attributes

To invite site exploration from visitors of varied backgrounds, we offer this glossary of terms and attributes central to the site’s navigation. The terms and concepts here are presented in order of importance rather than alphabetically. Readers wanting to learn about the categories essential for navigating the site should focus on these Primary Attributes while readers wanting to learn more about all facets of the project should also read the Secondary Attributes.

  • Cases:

    The dataset consists of available habeas petitions from county, state, and federal courts. Because of a broad range of documentation and archival practices, jurisdictions handled habeas petitions in myriad ways. To impose some structure to this range of practices, our dataset defines as a “case” any portion of a habeas petition, whether that includes its entry in an appearance docket, the petition itself, and/or a longer case file that includes the petition in addition to preceding and/or subsequent legal actions such as a criminal trial proceeding or divorce decree. For these reasons, “cases” are the foundational category used in the dataset for all forms of legal documentation. Individual entries in the dataset provide specific information regarding the particular documentation included in each habeas “case.”

  • Case Types:

    Recognizing the remarkable diversity of habeas petitions, we have divided the petitions into three primary categories. Within each of these primary categories, we have also elaborated subtypes that offer further detail regarding the specific nature of each petition. There are also instances where a petition is indexed in overlapping categories; the case of a minor confined to a children’s home as sentence for a criminal charge, for example. The primary categories are:

    • Carceral Petitions

      : These are petitions filed by an incarcerated petitioner; that is, someone who is bound in a jail or other detention facility. The site where they are being detained is indexed as the Site of Significance (defined below) and the arresting official detaining them is recorded as the Respondent/Holding Party (defined below) when named.

    • Institutional Petitions

      : Acknowledging that institutions like children’s homes and state hospitals can resemble carceral facilities, this project distinguishes institutional petitions from carceral petitions as a separate case type. Institutional petitions are those in which a Petitioner/Bound Party (defined below) requests judicial review of institutional detention. The relevant institutions are both indexed as the Site of Significance (defined below) and are referenced in the Case Summary that accompanies each Case record. Many of these institutional sites are private and state asylums, boarding schools, children’s homes, and/or hospitals. Often it is a representative of the institution that is named as the Responding Party/Respondent/Holding Party (defined below).

    • Interpersonal Petitions

      : Perhaps the most overlooked category of habeas petitions are those used to challenge interpersonal, coercive detention. In these cases, petitioners use habeas to charge other persons of wrongfully confining them in private custody. These cases most often include child custody disputes and wrongful enslavement claims, but also include disputes over minor marriage and indentured servitude.

  • Case Subtype:

    While the carceral, institutional, and interpersonal categories indicate very specific petition types, each primary category includes a myriad of variations we have identified as subtypes. We have maintained flexibility in this category so that each petition can be described as accurately as possible when entered into the database. For that reason, the subtypes are too numerous to be listed here individually, but a few general principles are worth acknowledging.

    • Carceral Subtype

      : The subtypes listed in carceral petitions characterize the carceral charge levied against the Bound Party/Petitioner. This means the petition subtype reflects the diversity of charges levied in courts throughout the long nineteenth century and has less to do with the nature of the habeas claim being made in such petitions. The decision to list the carceral charge as the petition subtype is discussed in the Code Book section below the Glossary.

    • Institutional Subtype

      : The subtypes listed in institutional petitions characterize the nature of institutional confinement being disputed. For instance, petitions challenging detention in an insane asylum are listed as “Institutional: Insanity,” while petitions seeking to release a minor from a children’s home are indexed as “Institutional: Child Custody.”

    • Interpersonal Subtype

      : Interpersonal petitions challenge coercive confinement in the hands of private actors rather than institutional or carceral agents. The interpersonal subtype aims to articulate the nature of the confinement being challenged. These tend mostly to involve domestic and labor disputes ranging from child custody, spousal abduction, and minor marriage to wrongful enslavement and wrongful servitude.

  • People:

    Like all legal records, habeas petitions include reference to a diverse range of actors. For the purposes of this project, only the people with a specific case role are indexed, while all people mentioned in a case are listed in the individual entries for each petition as “Additional Parties” so that visitors can pursue their own inquires on those individuals. Entries for individual People, then, are limited to those actors who occupied a defined case role in a habeas petition.

  • Case Roles:

    For the sake of efficiency, only people with specific case roles have been indexed in this project. Those case roles are as follows:

    • Bound Party

      : The person(s) being held.

    • Petitioner

      : The person(s) filing the petition for habeas corpus; this may be the Bound Party or it may be another party. If it is the same as the Bound Party, that person is indexed in both roles. When the Petitioner is not the Bound Party and there is a known relationship between the two parties, it is coded as a Relationship. See: Relationships

    • Respondent

      : The party named in the petition as the individual holding the bound party.

    • Holding Party

      : The person determined to in fact be the one holding the bound party; often is the respondent, but not always. If there is a relationship between the bound party and the holding party, it is coded as a Relationship. See: Relationships

    • Responding Party

      : When a party other than the named respondent replies to the writ, they are indexed as a distinct person. If the same person is the respondent, the holding party, and the responding party, they are indexed with all three roles to ensure they appear in any query that parses these roles out.

    • Petitioner & Respondent Attorney

      : When known, the names of the attorneys representing the petitioner and respondent are indexed.

    • Judge

      : When known, the judge presiding over the petition is indexed.

    • Authority Ordering Detention

      : Particularly in the instance of carceral cases in which a petitioner is challenging wrongful arrest, the judge or other official who initially ordered the petitioner’s detention is indexed.

  • Relationships:

    Wanting to not only indicate the Case Roles individual people occupied in each petition but also the relationships these people shared, we have linked people with Case Roles to one another through the relationships indicated in their case files. As with Case Subtypes, we have elected to allow flexibility when characterizing this attribute to reflect the language of the case file and the extensive list of Relationships found is not best listed here. Some relationships are consistent and straightforward, as the lawyer who is an “Attorney For” the petitioner, or the Bound Party who is “Judged By” the named Judge. Others are less consistent but nonetheless vital, such as the official who is the “Indian Agent of” a Native petitioner, or the minor who is “In the Disputed Interpersonal Custody of” the Holding Party/Respondent. This connection makes apparent the intimate relationships between parties in a case, for instance when it is a mother who is petitioning on behalf of her children who are being held in slavery, or a husband petitioning against his minor wife’s parents for custody of their daughter. Linking parties to one another also allows us to map the development of a professional legal network in noting the relationships of attorneys and judges arguing against and for one another.

Secondary Attributes

Data collected from the case files has been divided between information germane to the case file itself and information associated with the people who have a case role in each petition. Locations are included only to indicate where each case is heard (the location of the court) and which site of significance is named in the case (a jail in carceral cases, an institution in institutional cases, for instance). This explanation of secondary attributes focuses on People data first and then moves on to Cases and Locations.

  • Person Data

    • Person ID:

      Each person with a Case Role has a unique identifier number used in linking them to one another and to the cases they are named in.

    • People Data Unique to Cases:

      We distinguished Biographical Information from Case Data to indicate that People hold their biographical information outside of the parameters of their participation in a habeas petition and that some of their information is discretely tied to their role in the petition process. These include their “Case Role,” defined above, in addition to the following:
      • Cases
        : Each person’s data includes a list of cases they are associated with, along with their Case Roles in each of those cases. For Attorneys and Judges, there are often multiple cases, whereas other people with prominent roles such as Petitioner or Bound Party rarely appear in multiple cases.
      • Age Category
        : Wanting to distinguish between petitions focused on minors in contrast to those featuring adults, we identified whether someone with a Case Role was in the Minor, Adult, or Unindicated Age Category. This allows visitors to filter for petitions involving Minors or Adults only, for instance, and we are far more likely to know whether someone was an adult or minor in a case than to discover their specific Birth Date.

  • Case Data:

    Although archival legal records are notoriously incomplete and inconsistent, we have selected the following categories of data from each case whenever possible:

    • Petition Type & Subtype

      : Elaborated above, each case is assigned at least one Petition Type (Carceral, Institutional, and/or Interpersonal) along with a Subtype that specifies the charge or type of claim at the core of the disputed detention.

    • Dates

      : The earliest and latest document date in each case file is recorded, in addition to the date of the petition itself.

    • Court

      : The court hearing the petition is specified in the Case Data and is linked to the Location Data (below).

    • Case ID

      : Each case has a unique identifier number for the database.

    • Case Summary

      : Researchers on the team have written brief summaries for each case in the database. These summaries aim to characterize the sequence of events and arguments made in each case. In addition to citing the basic facts of the case, researchers also include details of interest or note to offer readers a stronger sense of the significance of each individual case. These summaries are included in keyword search functionality on the site.

    • Outcome

      : The outcome of the petition and subsequent writ are listed as follows: Petition Denied, Petition Withdrawn, Writ Allowed, Writ Denied, Writ Dismissed, Writ Dismissed for Want of Prosecution, & Unknown. We do not recommend faceting on outcome because so many cases are incomplete and unknown outcomes are common.

    • Fate of Bound Party

      : Given the variability in our dataset and incomplete nature of legal archives generally, we elected to identify the “Fate of Bound Party” separately from the Petition Outcome. This ensures clarity for site users who wish to sort petitions by whether the Bound Party was released or not, since sometimes the Petitioner used habeas to keep the Bound Party in custody and so Writ Allowed means the Bound Party remained in custody, which is counter-intuitive.

    • State

      : The state in which the petition is filed is noted because it is not always evident from the name of the court hearing the petition.

    • Points of Law Cited

      : When petitions reference treaties, statutes, or case law, we have documented those sources as thoroughly as possible. In some petitions, such references are not clearly elaborated, making it difficult to document consistently.

    • Source Material

      : Given the inconsistency of archival materials, we have indicated what types of materials constitute each case entry. These include:
      • Case File:
        A record of all documents filed in a comprehensive case file; these source materials almost always include the original petition.
      • Complete Record:
        A copy of the Case File transcribed by a clerk or archivist (this source material type seems specific to Nebraska’s State Archive, which holds records from some counties that chose to dispose of original case files after making a typed transcript referred to as the “Complete Record”). These source materials almost always include a transcription of the petition filed.
      • Docket:
        Docket books recorded the dates and names of some of the parties involved in habeas corpus proceedings, as well as an outcome, but they rarely noted any information regarding the type of habeas corpus petition being filed.
      • Index:
        Some court indexes noted habeas corpus petitions along with their date, some party names, and occasionally a case number. These entries contain no additional data.
      • Journal:
        Court journals often included habeas corpus proceedings as part of daily court activity. Such entries often, though not always, name the primary parties involved and offer some sense of the actions taken in court. These entries do not always contain enough information to determine the petition type and rarely name the attorneys involved, but they are far more useful than Index entries.

    • Length of Case File

      : To give readers a sense of the extent of source material available on any given entry, we have documented the length of case files in increments of five pages, ten pages, twenty-five pages, and fifty pages. Petitions without a case file are noted as “No Case File.”

    • Related Document(s)

      : In a pilot phase of this project, our team transcribed case files using TEI standards in xml format. For those cases with xml transcription, we have linked to those files.

    • Related Case(s)

      : Some petitions are related to others in a variety of ways: some feature petitioners arrested together for the same crime, but who petitioned separately. In the instance of a riot, we would want readers to know that the same dozen or so petitions stem from the same event; in the instance of an institutional official abusing several detainees, we would want to document the connection between those detainee’s individual petitions. Many cases will not include this category, but it is useful for indicating to readers the connections that are not otherwise visible.

    • Repository

      : The repository holding original records is listed to allow visitors to order copies of any records included in the dataset directly from the holding institution. Repository information is also linked to Location data.

    • Case Citation

      : o help others successfully obtain copies of the case files from relevant repositories, we have listed the citation information relevant to the holding institution. This is information generated by the archival repository and recorded by the PFF team

    • Tag(s)

      : Any relevant keyword not already captured in above Case Data may be added as a Tag. Most cases do not have tags.

  • Location Data

    : Locational data is the least elaborated of all collected case information because of limited resources. Certain locations are cited as explained below, but none have been georeferenced.

    • Location Types

      : All cases have a Court and a Repository, most also have a Site of Significance.
      • Site of Significance
        : All carceral cases have the jail holding the bound party listed as a “site of significance,” and all institutional cases have the institution holding the bound party listed as a “site of significance.” Some cases have more than one such site. Interpersonal cases rarely include a “site of significance,” since few cases indicate the location where the bound party was held other than in the custody of the holding party.
      • Court
        : The court hearing the case is listed in the case data and is also linked to the location data. In addition to naming the specific court, we have indicated the court type, which is illustrative of the varied courts that heard habeas petitions, from probate and municipal justice courts to state and federal district courts and supreme courts.
      • Repository
        : The repository holding original records is listed to allow visitors to order copies of any records included in the dataset directly from the holding institution. These repositories vary from county district court clerk offices to regional branches of the National Archives and Records Administration.

  • State and County

    : Visitors may explore the collection by state or county.
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