§ 9-14-6.Form of writ

Where earlier sections describe what a petition must contain, this one shows what the writ itself looks like once a judge issues it. The form runs through the standard elements of a Georgia civil action caption — the court, the county, the parties labeled Petitioner and Respondent, a civil action file number — before turning to the operative command.

That command is addressed directly to the respondent by name. It orders the respondent to produce the body of the named or described detained person, along with the cause of the detention, at a specific date, time, and place. The form closes with the judge’s signature line. Because the statute introduces this template with “may be substantially as follows,” it is a guide rather than a script — a writ that departs from the exact phrasing or layout still satisfies the statute so long as it carries the same substance: identification of the parties, the command to produce the person and the cause of detention, and a return date and place.

The 1999 amendment to this section brought the form current with modern civil-action captioning conventions, but the underlying command — produce the body, state the cause, appear at a set time — traces back to the section’s nineteenth-century origins.