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It’s been said that there’s no time like the present. But where we are now is often the result of where we’ve been in the past. With that in mind, Briefly Legal invites you to travel back in time to take a look at what happened during this week in legal history:

Right of what writ? May 25, 1861, ignited a battle over habeas corpus that continues today. President Abraham Lincoln denied John Merryman the right of habeas corpus after Merryman, a Maryland legislator, was arrested for trying to prevent Union troops from moving from Baltimore to Washington during the Civil War.

Roger Taney, U.S. Supreme Court chief justice, ruled that Lincoln had overstepped his bounds in suspending Merryman鈥檚 habeas corpus right. Lincoln responded by asserting that the suspension was necessary to quell the South鈥檚 rebellion. The Supreme Court supported Taney鈥檚 decision five years later by ruling in a different case that only Congress could suspend someone鈥檚 habeas corpus right and that civilians were not subject to military courts, even during wartime. The debate reignited within the last decade as prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay after the 9/11 attacks were denied habeas corpus.

Play ball: The U.S. Supreme Court issued a peculiar yet persistent decision on May 29, 1922, when it ruled that organized baseball did not violate antitrust laws because it鈥檚 a sport rather than a business. The decision responded to a 1915 case in which the Baltimore Terrapins 鈥� members of the vanished Federal League 鈥� sued the American and National leagues, alleging they violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by creating a monopoly.

鈥淭he Federal League chose the U.S. District Court presided over by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was known as a trustbuster, to hear their case. What the Federal League did not know was that Landis was also a passionate Chicago Cubs fan who was reticent to do anything that might, in his eyes, damage the sport he loved,鈥� according to History.com.

Landis delayed hearing the case and the Federal League went defunct. Meanwhile, Landis became the sport鈥檚 commissioner in 1920 and issued eight lifetime suspensions in the Black Sox scandal. The Supreme Court issued its ruling that baseball is exempt from antitrust laws, a status the lucrative sport continues to enjoy today while all other professional sports franchises do not.

Our thanks to History.com for this week鈥檚 legal tidbits.