## Facts

- In 1855, Indiana enacted a statewide “liquor act” that broadly prohibited the manufacture, sale, and use of whisky, ale, porter, and beer, treating those beverages as unlawful for ordinary beverage purposes.
- Herman was charged with violating the 1855 liquor act and was convicted.
- After his conviction, Herman sought a writ of habeas corpus, contending that the statute under which he had been prosecuted was unconstitutional and therefore void.
- The habeas petition was presented to a single justice of the Indiana Supreme Court (Perkins, J.) sitting in chambers, pursuant to statutory authorization allowing citizens to seek habeas relief from individual Supreme Court judges.
- Herman’s request for discharge rested on a single claim: because the liquor act was unconstitutional, it could not supply lawful authority for his imprisonment.

## Issues

1. Whether Indiana’s 1855 liquor act—so far as it absolutely prohibited the manufacture, sale, and beverage use of whisky, ale, porter, and beer—was unconstitutional.
2. Whether habeas corpus could be used to order Herman’s release when the only asserted legal basis for his confinement was an allegedly unconstitutional criminal statute.

## Decision

- The court (Perkins, J., in chambers) held that the liquor act’s absolute prohibition of common alcoholic beverages for beverage use was unconstitutional.
- The justice explained that a court’s task in such a proceeding is to decide constitutional validity, not whether the statute reflects sound policy.
- Because Herman’s imprisonment rested on a statute deemed unconstitutional and void, the writ was sustained and Herman was ordered discharged.

## Legal Principles

- A habeas court may inquire whether the statute that supplies the sole authority for a person’s confinement is constitutional; if the statute is void, continued detention is unlawful.
- When the legislature authorizes habeas applications to individual supreme court judges, the judge must decide the case presented and may not refuse to act merely because the question is important or politically charged.
- The police power allows regulation of intoxicating liquors, but an enactment that operates as an absolute ban on the ordinary beverage use of commonly possessed articles may exceed constitutional limits.
- Constitutional review requires separating policy arguments from legal authority: even a law that seems beneficial may fall if it conflicts with the constitution, and a law that seems unwise may stand if it does not.

## Conclusion

In *Herman v. State*, a single Indiana Supreme Court justice, acting in chambers on habeas corpus, held that Indiana’s 1855 liquor act was unconstitutional to the extent it imposed an absolute prohibition on the manufacture, sale, and beverage use of whisky, ale, porter, and beer, and ordered Herman discharged because his imprisonment depended on a void statute.


Herman v. State, 8 Ind. 545 (1855)