In Ex Parte Tobias Watkins (1830) 28 U.S. 193, the Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from a prisoner "detained in prison by virtue of the judgment of a court, which court possesses general and final jurisdiction in criminal cases." (Id., at 202.) Reviewing the English common law which informed American courts' understanding of the scope of the writ, we held that "the judgment of the circuit court in a criminal case is of itself evidence of its own legality," and that we could not "usurp that power by the instrumentality of the writ of habeas corpus." (Id., at 207.) Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said: "An imprisonment under a judgment cannot be unlawful, unless that judgment be an absolute nullity; and it is not a nullity if the Court has general jurisdiction of the subject, although it should be erroneous." The Court also said: The writ of habeas corpus is a high prerogative writ, known to the common law, the great object of which is the liberation of those who may be imprisoned without sufficient cause.