NON-FICTION (Supreme Court)

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Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Books

The Supreme Court announced its landmark school desegregation decision on May 17, 1954. Several new books explore the case, and what has happened since: Richard Kluger, Simple Justice (re-issue of a widely praised history, with a new afterword); Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (which sees Brown as the inevitable result of historic forces); Derrick Bell, Silent Covenants (which sees the promise of Brown remaining unfulfilled); Charles J. Ogletree Jr., All Deliberate Speed (which questions whether integration is an unalloyed benefit); Sheryll Cashin, The Failures of Integration (which responds to the failures by laying out an integrationist vision).

 

Sandra Day O'Connor, The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice [Published April 2003]

The veteran associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, distills in this book the scores of talks she has given across the country and around the world in the 20 years since her accession to the high court. The New York Times Book Review says that the author "is at her most frank and most interesting when she addresses her status as the first woman to serve on the court. By the same author: Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest (6/30/03)

 

John T. Noonan, Jr., Narrowing the Nation's Power: The Supreme Court Sides with the States [Published August 2002]

Ninth Circuit Judge Noonan examines the common-law origins of the doctrine that the sovereign is immune from suit. He finds the doctrine absent from the Constitution. Linda Greenhouse writes in The New York Times Book Review that the result of Judge Noonan's work "is a stinging and even startling critique of recent decisions that have shifted the balance of power in the country away form Congress toward the states and -- most damning in Judge Noonan's view -- toward the court itself." [ ] Other books by the same author: The Lustre of Our Country: The American Experience of Religious Freedom; Persons and Masks of the Law: Cardozo, Holmes, Jefferson and Wythe As Makers of the Masks (8/18/02)

 

Jamin B. Raskin, Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court vs. the American People [Published January 2003]

The author is a professor of law at American University. He argues for a whole new set of rights that revitalize and protect the democracy of everyday life. Detailing specific cases through interesting narratives, he describes the transgressions of the Supreme Court against the Constitution and the people -- and the faulty reasoning behind them -- and lays out the plan for the best way to back a more democratic system. [ ] (5/25/03)

 

Alan M. Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 [Published June 2001]

The well-known Harvard law professor trashes the Supreme Court decision that awarded the 2000 election to George Bush. According to its author, "This book is about the culpability of those justices who hijacked Election 2000 by distorting the law, violating their own expressed principles, and using their own robes to bring about a partisan result." According to The New York Times Book Review, "Dershowitz is at his best in his exposure of how Bush v. Gore is inconsistent with previous decisions of the majority justices." For another negative view, try Vincent Bugliosi's The Betrayal of America. (7/16/01) [ ]

 

Hon. Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation

Justice Scalia shares his opinions about the law in general and the role of judges in particular. Is the common-law mindset--in which a judge can maneuver through earlier cases to achieve a desired aim--suitable also in statutory and constitutional interpretation? In a witty and trenchant essay, Supreme Court Justice Scalia answers this question with a resounding negative, urging that judges resist the temptation to use legislative intention and legislative history.

 

Cass R. Sunstein, One Case At A Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court [Published March 1999]

The author, a Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, contends that Justices Breyer, Binsburg, O'Connor, Souter and Stevens form a minimalist majority that has been "the most striking feature of American law in the 1990's." The New York Times Book Review says that "this admirable book makes a judicious case for a philosophy of judging as a humble, difficult, essential art." (5/30/99)

 

Garrett Epps, To An Unknown God: Religious Freedom on Trial [Published March 2001]

The story of Employment Division v. Smith, a routine unemployment dispute that grew into a Supreme Court showdown regarding the right of Native Americans to worship God with the use of peyote. According to The New York Times Book Review, the author "not only gives the reader a sense of the profound importance of the case, he also puts flesh and bone on the otherwise cold record of published opinions." (4/15/01)

 

Jerry Goldman, The Supreme Court's Greatest Hits [Published July 1999]

A compact disk that contains over 70 hours or oral argument from famous cases that have come before the Supreme Court, together with helpful background material. Tony Mauro, who covers the Court for USA Today, calls it a "multimedia masterpiece." Arguments from the following cases, among others, are included: Clinton v. Jones, Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona, New York Times v. Sullivan and Roe v. Wade (8/24/99)

 

Peter Irons & Stephanie Guitton, May It Please The Court: Live Recordings of the Supreme Court in Session [Published October 1996]

Listen to historic arguments before the United States Supreme Court, like Brown v. Board of Education. A companion paperback book provides helpful background and commentary about the arguments. A must for any aspiring oral advocate. A sequel published in August 1997 covers 16 key First Amendment cases, in which advocates like Lawrence Tribe and William Kuntsler argue cases involving flag-burning, hate speech, prayer in public school, and the meaning of obscenity. (1/23/00)

 

Peter H. Irons, A People's History of the Supreme Court [Published September 1999]

The author explains: "When I decided to write a full-scale history of the Supreme Court, I framed the book around a relatively small number of cases (about 85) so that I could give the reader enough context and detail about each one to fully understand and appreciate the human story behind the case." By the same author: The Courage of Their Convictions: Sixteen Americans Who Fought Their Way To The Supreme Court (12/2/99)

 

Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Justices, Clerks and Political Agendas That Control the Supreme Court [Published April 1998]

A former clerk to Justice Blackmun claims to tell all about internecine warfare on the United States Supreme Court. Among other things, he claims that a cabal of conservative clerks wielded undue influence of the justices for whom they worked, and that the justices invoked intellectually dishonest arguments in pursuit of "partisan victory." David J. Garrow says in The New York Times Book Review that "some of Lazarus's insider stories about open warfare between liberal and conservative clerks during the 1988-1989 term are both entertaining and memorable. ... a worthwhile book for students of Supreme Court history, but it is not a book general readers should rely upon for an accurate and dependable contemporary portrait." (3/19/98)

 

E. Joshua Rosenkranz & Bernard Schwartz (eds.), Reason and Passion: Justice Brennan's Enduring Influence [Published April 1997]

Three dozen contributors discuss the late Justice Brennan's impact on the law and the nation over the nearly four decades he served in the Supreme Court. The list of admirers includes judges, journalists, law professors, and lawyers, all of hwom recall in their essays the importance of Justice Brennan's opinions to the cause of human rights and equality under the law. (10/1/98)

 

Dennis J. Hutchinson, The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White: A Portrait of Justice Byron R. White [Published July 1998]

Hutchinson, who clerked for Justice White in 1975, tells the story of the man who rose from a poor beet-farming community in Colorado to become a Rhodes scholar, NFL star, Deputy Attorney General and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The New York Times Book Review calls the book "a fascinating account of a remarkable life." Tony Mauro, who writes on the Supreme Court for USA Today says that the book "tells the unique story of Whizzer White exceedingly well." (6/28/98)

 

Juan Williams, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary [Published in paperback February 2000]

This new biography retells the story of Thurgood Marshall's successful desegregation of public schools in the United States with his victory in Brown v. Board of Education, followed by his appointment to the Supreme Court for a 24-year term. The New York Times Book Review calls it "a strong piece of journalism crammed with fascinating detail, done in an unassuming style driven by the factual narrative." (10/1/98)

 

Ed Cray, Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren [Published June 1997]

The story of the Chief Justice whose Court changed the course of American law. A new biography that should become the definitive one. If you want to see a sample of what the book is like, this month's California Lawyer magazine contains an adaptation of one of the chapters, which covers developments from the Chief Justice's early years on the Court. Of particular interest are the book's insights into the early influences on the Chief Justice's views. For example, "[Justice] Frankfurter remained at heart a law professor, and for much of the chief's first two years on the Court, Earl Warren would be his most important student." The Los Angeles Times Book Review says: "But if Cray's analysis is somewhat lacking, his work is still rich in raw material, and from that material, a coherent portrait of Warren does emerge. It is the portrait of a classically American man, one moved by an intense love of country and a simple faith in its ideals. . . . In the 23 years since Warren's death, our expectations have diminished again. After reading Cray's rendering of this remarkable man's life, I cannot help but think that our leaders have diminished with them." (5/97)

 

William H. Rehnquist, All The Laws But One [Published in paperback January 2000]

Chief Justice Rehnquist explores the tension between civil liberties and military necessity, with an emphasis the Civil War and the suspension of habeas corpus by President Lincoln, who complained the the Supreme Court, by limiting his authority to do so, was allowing "all the laws, but one, go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated." (1/29/99)

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