10-124.Causes for discharge when in custody on process of court.

Where a prisoner is held by process from a court that is legally constituted, Section 10-124 confines discharge to seven specific causes. A person may be discharged where the court exceeded the limit of its jurisdiction as to matter, place, sum, or person; where a later act, omission, or event has made the party entitled to discharge even though the original imprisonment was lawful; where the process is defective in some substantial form the law requires; or where the process, though proper in form, was issued in a case or under circumstances where the law doesn't allow imprisonment or arrest orders to issue at all.

The remaining grounds cover process issued in a case unauthorized to issue it, or held by someone not legally empowered to detain the party; process obtained by false pretense or bribery; and, finally, a total absence of legal authority — no general law, judgment, or court order to support a civil process, or no conviction at all to support a criminal one.

The section closes with an important limit on the court's own role: on the return of a habeas corpus, no court shall, in any other matter, inquire into the legality or justice of a judgment of a legally constituted court. That final sentence keeps the seven listed grounds as the exclusive avenue for relief against otherwise valid court process, rather than opening the door to a broader re-examination of the underlying judgment.