May 4th, 2007
Posted by Gabe Rottman, ACLU Blogger at 12:20pm	National Security

Habeas Sighting: Kaanapali Beach, HI

Looks like Habeas has found a way to leave the main land, at least according to this most recent sighting is from a 20-year-old college student named Becca:

My friends and I are here in Hawaii for two weeks – finals just ended like two days ago and we decided way back in the winter that we would get as far away from Ohio State as possible as soon as possible after our last exam. Anyhow, we were hanging out on the beach watching the surfers when my roommate Vanessa started walking toward the water and pointing. We all got up to see what she was looking at, because the way she was talking didn’t make any sense at first. She kept shouting “It’s Habeas!” Which sounded like some made-up name, or like maybe she was having a finals flash-back, but then I saw this little green guy riding a monstrous wave. At first I thought he was in a wetsuit, but as he got closer I realized that’s just, like, him. He’s green! It’s kind of cool. We didn’t want to bother him, so we just watched as he picked up his board and headed down the beach. Vanessa explained who he is, how great he is, how he is missing, all of that. Now that I know all that I kind of wish I had talked to him. I sure hope he’s ok. Becca

Have you seen Habeas? Send your sightings to aclu@aclu.org.

Permalink |	National Security

Tags: Close Guantanamo, detention, findhabeas, national security project

1. kathriven Says:
   May 7th, 2007 at 4:05pm

   Habeus Corpus Sighting!

   Literally, the last time I saw Habeus Corpus was in an article I read this week entitled, "Being Sane in Insane Places" by D. L. Rosenhan. This article is the report on a study where eight sane people posed as pseudopatients and admitted themselves to either a State mental hospital or a psychiatric ward. When they were admitted, they were subject to an indeterminate hospital stay. The only thing that saved them from a possible lifetime of abuse in the hospital was the writ of habeus corpus their lawyer drew up for them prior to their stay.

   Despite their normal behavior, these pseudopatients were never detected and were labeled as schizophrenics. They were subjected to depersonalization, no privacy whatsoever, and their personal hygiene was monitored. Verbal abuse was common. In effect, these people became "invisible" and lost all their rights even though they were perfectly sane people.

   According to the study, psychiatrists have problems determining the difference between sanity, an ordinary nervous breakdown and psychosis or schizophrenia. Many people in mental hospitals have been misdiagnosed, drugged and kept indefinitely.

   The study suggested that psychiatrists would rather be "safe than sorry," so a label of insanity is applied in inconclusive cases. The study also showed that when hospitals were informed they had pseudopatients staying there, they mistakenly identified 41 patients to be sane. In fact, not a single pseudopatient was at the hospitals during that time. It was a red herring planted in order to validate the study.

   Totalitarian regimes commonly use mental hospitals to detain political enemies that cannot be brought up on criminal charges. This is a common practice in China. Without habeus corpus, what would prevent Americans from being admitted on false charges of insanity and virtually incarcerated for the rest of their lives? If they were to protest a false label, they would be seen as "resistant to treatment."

   It is now impossible to investigate the erroneous labeling of insanity by posing as a pseudopatient, as done in this study, because without habeus corpus, the pseudopatient would have no means of leaving the hospital.

   I thought this was an interesting application of the principle of habeus corpus.