Weary defendants have been told time and time again that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but that old adage has never stopped Kristi Noem.
The Department of Homeland Security head was asked to define habeas corpus during a congressional hearing on Tuesday and offered something like the procedure's exact opposite. (For the unaware, habeas corpus is a right granted to prisoners that allows them to question the legality of their imprisonment via petitions to the court.) Noem was grilled on the idea by Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., offering up that the centuries-old principle was a right given to the president to deport people of his choosing.
