Coram nobis

Coram nobis (lat. In our presence ) is, according to Anglo-Saxon common law, an application or request in court to admit and correct a serious mistake made beforehand.

Originally this request was a "writ in equity" ", that is, an application before an equity court. Several centuries ago England had a two-part legal system : law and equity ( fairness ). Law courts ( courts at law ) dealt with customary and literal law, while equity applied not the exact law but a general principle of fairness. Later the two systems were merged; today every court should apply the principle of equity in those situations where it traditionally appears appropriate.

The judges in England and the USA usually interpret the phrase "coram nobis" as "the error ahead". An attorney makes this motion in order to “get justice” only in cases where “no other remedy” is available. Petitioners who have already served their sentences use this request. The purposes of the application are varied. The application may ask that the court lift certain restrictions or requirements of the probation period . Sometimes the applicant wants to get the fine back or to stop making further payments. In other cases it is hoped to regain civil rights, including the right to own weapons (in the US at least) or the right to vote . Reversing a judgment can help the petitioner find new work, get better credit , or even restore their public reputation. The ultimate goal is to rehabilitate an unjustly convicted person as much as possible. The beneficiaries of a petitioner may also submit an application, even if the petitioner himself has died.

However, the applicability of these requests is strictly limited. Coram nobis is not permitted to simply re-examine matters that have already been decided by the court. The decree-coram-nobis is only applicable if one wishes to re-examine factual errors that were unknown at the time of the previous trial or if the public prosecutor's office knowingly withheld relevant facts from the judges and / or defendants. The court may only investigate those facts that might have changed the actual outcome of the trial.

A well-known example at the U.S. Supreme Court was the infamous Korematsu vs. United States (1944). This decision allowed during the Second World War, the internment of US citizens of Japanese origin. It was not until 1983 that the Supreme Court agreed to a coram nobis decree to overturn earlier judgments.