| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
› Find signed collectible books: 'All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime'
In the first hectic days of the American Civil War, the future of the Union was in doubt. Troops traveling to defend Washington were waylaid by mobs in Maryland. In the midst of this crisis, Abraham Lincoln sought to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to permit the military to detain those who were interfering with the prosecution of the war. When the Supreme Court limited his ability to do so, Lincoln complained that the Court was allowing "all the laws, but one, go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated." Eventually, civil liberties were curtailed for the duration of the Civil War--as they would be again in World Wars I and II.
That Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist's analysis of civil liberties in wartime is entitled All the Laws but One hints where he comes down on the subject. Rehnquist acknowledges and criticizes the excesses of civil liberties violations in wartime--during World War I, for example, editorial cartoonists critical of the government were prosecuted for sedition. But he defends the need to curtail some liberties in emergency situations--including, surprisingly, some instances of the evacuation and relocation of Japanese Americans that took place during World War II. Rehnquist's style can be disjointed at times--as when cursory biographical information of key players seems to have been tacked on to fill out the otherwise slim volume--but the historical analysis of martial law and other Civil War controversies, which comprises the overwhelming majority of the book, remains fascinating. --Ted Frank [via]
More editions of All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bakke Case: Race, Education, and Affirmative Action'
More editions of The Bakke Case: Race, Education, and Affirmative Action:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey'
More editions of Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Brethren: Inside The Supreme Court'
The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices -- maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising and making decisions that affect every major area of American life. [via]
More editions of The Brethren: Inside The Supreme Court:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Closed Chambers : The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court'
Edward Lazarus, a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, spills the beans on an institution that values silence. Nobody is supposed to understand what happens behind the scenes of the high court--that's why the justices rarely speak to the media--but Lazarus tells all he knows from his time as a top aide to Blackmun in the Supreme Court's 1988 term. There's a lot of legal theory and history, but it's well presented and usually focuses on touchstone issues in U.S. politics; cases involving abortion, the death penalty, and racial preferences receive sustained treatment in these pages. There are gossipy bits, too, revealing unflattering details about several current justices. Sure to be one of the more controversial books of the year. --John J. Miller [via]
More editions of Closed Chambers : The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court'
Edward Lazarus, a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, spills the beans on an institution that values silence. Nobody is supposed to understand what happens behind the scenes of the high court--that's why the justices rarely speak to the media--but Lazarus tells all he knows from his time as a top aide to Blackmun in the Supreme Court's 1988 term. There's a lot of legal theory and history, but it's well presented and usually focuses on touchstone issues in U.S. politics; cases involving abortion, the death penalty, and racial preferences receive sustained treatment in these pages. There are gossipy bits, too, revealing unflattering details about several current justices. Sure to be one of the more controversial books of the year. --John J. Miller [via]
More editions of Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Congress V. the Supreme Court'
More editions of Congress V. the Supreme Court:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Courage of Their Convictions'
More editions of The Courage of Their Convictions:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Courage of Their Convictions: Sixteen Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court'
More editions of The Courage of Their Convictions: Sixteen Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Court and the Constitution'
America's foremost professor of constitutional law celebrates the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution in a history of its interpretation, reviewing its evolution from framing to the present. [via]
More editions of The Court and the Constitution:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Courtiers of the Marble Palace: The Rise And Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk'
Since the hiring of the first supreme court law clerk by associate justice horace gray in the late 1880s, court observers and the general public have demonstrated a consistent fascination with law clerks and the influence-real or imagined-that they wield over judicial decisions. While initially each supreme court justice hired a single clerk, today's justices can hire up to four new law school graduates. The justices have taken advantage of this resource, and in modern times law clerks have been given greater job duties and more responsibility. The increased use of law clerks has spawned a controversy about the role they play, and commentators have suggested that liberal or conservative clerks influence their justices' decision making. The influence debate is but one piece of a more important and largely unexamined puzzle regarding the hiring and utilization of supreme court law clerks.courtiers of the marble palace is the first systematic examination of the "clerkship institution"-the web of formal and informal norms and rules surrounding the hiring and utilization of law clerks by the individual justices on the united states supreme court. Todd peppers provides an unprecedented view into the work lives of and day-to-day relationships between justices and their clerks; relationships that in some cases have extended to daily breakfasts, games of competitive basketball and tennis, and occasional holiday celebrations. Through personal interviews with fifty-three former clerks and correspondence with an additional ninety, as well as personal interviews with a number of non-clerks, including justice antonin scalia, peppers has amassed a body of information that reveals the true inner-workings of the clerkship institution.with a foreword by professor robert m. O'neil of the university of virginia school of law, former president of the university of virginia and former law clerk for justice william j. Brennan, jr [via]
More editions of Courtiers of the Marble Palace: The Rise And Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Courting Disaster: The Supreme Court and the Unmaking of American Law'
More editions of Courting Disaster: The Supreme Court and the Unmaking of American Law:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians V. the Supreme Court'
If this meticulously documented and compellingly narrated chronicle of the gay-related cases before the nation's highest court over the past fifty-odd years were even half as good as it is--or, ideally, half as long--it would still be terrific. Lending heft to the notion that the couple that investigates together domesticates together, veteran D.C. journalists Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price, life partners since 1985, have composed the gay bookend to Bob Woodward's The Brethren--with all the epic sweep, painstaking research and intimate storytelling of such nonfiction classics as And the Band Played On and Common Ground. Two cases here provide the book's anchors: 1986's Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld Georgia's law against homosexual sodomy and provided an astonishingly hostile climax to two decades of high-court homophobia, and 1992's ruling that found unconstitutional Colorado's ban on equal protection of any sort for gays--the Court's greatest and most respectful affirmation of gay rights, if not much of a promise that the court would rule with equal sensitivity on future gay-related cases.
Beyond those two seminal rulings, Murdoch and Price cover what seems like, and may well be, every gay-oriented case to so much as petition the Court since the Eisenhower years. That comprehensiveness can become a little exhausting, amounting as it does largely to a dispiriting archive of the myriad ways the Court has found of blithely dismissing or even scoffing at the basic rights of gay Americans. Drawing on everything from scrawled notes in the justices' personal archives to in-depth interviews with the justices' former clerks, Murdoch and Price provide a fascinating window into how each justice's individual experience and temperament--not to mention the intricate, ever shifting power plays among them--influenced his or her decisions. The most heart-wrenching, haunting portrait is of Justice Lewis Powell, by the 1980s an frail, aging Southern gentleman who had an uncanny knack for hiring gay clerks yet claimed he'd never met a homosexual. He made a valiant but failed effort to understand gays, and ultimately changed his mind at the last minute to cast the damning, deciding vote in Bowers--an about-face he fretted over up until his death. Rehnquist and Scalia clearly emerge here as the homophobic bullies, with Thomas as their silent yes man, O'Connor as spinelessly concerned with voting in the majority, and Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter and sometimes Kennedy as the usual pro-gay "count-on" votes. Undeniably, Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun (who wrote Bowers's stirring dissent) are portrayed as the heroes on the bench.
But the real heroes here are in the pageant of gay men and lesbians who took their demands for justice to the nation's highest court, many in an era when it was considered absurd to think they had any rights at all in an America that saw them as child molesters, psychopaths, or--at best--pitifully "afflicted with homosexuality." Very few of them were vindicated, and many more lost nearly everything--their jobs, homes, income, privacy, reputation, and sometimes children--for the fight they waged. Their diversely fascinating stories are told here, in a volume whose ultimate triumph is the emotional punch it packs. I kept thinking of Dorothy and her friends petitioning the Wizard: Their firm belief that he would do right by them, their fear and awe before his mysterious majesty, their rage and grief when he welshed on his promise, and, finally, their astonishment to learn that the great and mighty Oz, who had the last say in the highest tribunal in the land, was really just a man, with the same capacity for both ignorance and enlightenment as the rest of us. --Timothy Murphy [via]
More editions of Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians V. the Supreme Court:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Deciding to Decide'
More editions of Deciding to Decide:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech'
Jacob Abrams et al. v. United States is the landmark Supreme Court case in the definition of free speech. Although the 1918 conviction of four Russian Jewish anarchists-for distributing leaflets protesting America's intervention in the Russian revolution-was upheld, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's dissenting opinion (with Justice Louis Brandeis) concerning "clear and present danger" has proved the touchstone of almost all subsequent First Amendment theory and litigation.In Fighting Faiths, Richard Polenberg explores the causes and characters of this dramatic episode in American history. He traces the Jewish immigrant experience, the lives of the convicted anarchists before and after the trials, the careers of the major players in the court cases-men such as Holmes, defense attorney Harry Weinberger, Southern Judge Henry DeLamar Clayton, Jr., and the young J. Edgar Hoover-and the effects of this important case on present-day First Amendment rights. [via]
More editions of Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Gideon's Trumpet'
A history of the landmark case of James Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel. Notes, table of cases, index. The classic backlist bestseller. More than 800,000 sold since its first pub date of 1964. [via]
More editions of Gideon's Trumpet:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Government by Judiciary'
More editions of Government by Judiciary:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment'
The Justices, who are virtually unaccountable, irremovable, and irreversible, have taken over from the people control of their own destiny.
Raoul Berger
It is the thesis of this monumentally argued book that the United States Supreme Courtlargely through abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitutionhas embarked on "a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the guise of interpretation." Consequently, the Court has subverted America's democratic institutions and wreaked havoc upon Americans' social and political lives.
One of the first constitutional scholars to question the rise of judicial activism in modern times, Raoul Berger points out that "the Supreme Court is not empowered to rewrite the Constitution, that in its transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment it has demonstrably done so. Thereby the Justices, who are virtually unaccountable, irremovable, and irreversible, have taken over from the people control of their own destiny, an awesome exercise of power."
The Court has accomplished this transformation by ignoring or actually distorting the original intent of both the framers and the supporters of the Fourteenth Amendment. In school desegregation and legislative reapportionment cases, for example, the Court manipulated the history, meaning, and purpose of the amendment's Equal Protection Clause in order to achieve a desired political result. In cases involving First Amendment freedoms and the rights of the accused, the judges converted the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause into a vehicle for the nationalization of the Bill of Rights. Yet these actions were nothing less than "usurpations" that robbed "from the States a power that unmistakably was left to them."
This new second edition includes the original text of 1977 and extensive supplementary discourses in which the author assesses and rebuts the responses of his critics.
Raoul Berger retired in 1976 as Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History, Harvard University.
More editions of Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson'
More editions of Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A History Of American Law'
"A History of American Law" has become a classic for students of law, American history and sociology across the country. In this brilliant and immensely readable book, Lawrence M. Friedman tells the whole fascinating story of American law from its beginnings in the colonies to the present day. By showing how close the life of the law is to the economic and political life of the country, he makes a complex subject understandable and engrossing. "A History of American Law" presents the achievements and failures of the American legal system in the context of America's commercial and working world, family practices and attitudes toward property, slavery, government, crime and justice.
Now Professor Friedman has completely revised and enlarged his landmark work, incorporating a great deal of new material. The book contains newly expanded notes, a bibliography and a bibliographical essay. [via]
More editions of A History Of American Law:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A History of the Supreme Court'
Bernard Schwartz's history treats the Court as "both a mirror and a motor--reflecting the development of the society which it serves and helping to move that society in the direction of the dominant jurisprudence of the day." Beginning with the 17th-century writings of Sir Edward Coke, which shaped much of the legal thinking of America's Founding Fathers, Schwartz considers each of the major eras of the Supreme Court's tenure, from its first term in 1790 (held in New York City) to the Rehnquist years. There are also four chapters that deal specifically with watershed cases: Dred Scott v. Sandford, Lochner v. New York, Brown v. Board of Education, and Roe v. Wade. Schwartz marshals a substantial amount of historical information to carry the story forward without getting stuck on minutiae. [via]
More editions of A History of the Supreme Court:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hugo Black: A Biography'
Hugo Black's odyssey was long, varied, unlikely, and remarkably successful. It began in 1886 in the Alabama hill country and ended in 1971, when Americans were demonstrating in the streets. As a United States senator from 1927 to 1937 and then for thirty-four years on the United States Supreme Court as its most passionate civil libertarian, Black fought for the rights and welfare of all people.
Here is the first full-scale biography of this commanding figure. Never before has the story been so richly told. Roger Newman reveals much we did not know -- about Black's activities in the Ku Klux Klan and the furor over his appointment by FDR to the Supreme Court. He takes us behind the scenes at the Court and into its secret conferences, showing us the preparation of opinions and explaining the relationships among the justices.
Black is seen as he was -- a brilliant trial lawyer, the investigating senator called by one reporter "a walking encyclopedia with a Southern accent," and the wily politician and astute justice who led the redirection of American law toward the protection of the individual.
Black's story, is also an American story, filled with vivid accounts of his friendships and often dramatic encounters with FDR, Harry Truman, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnson, and William J. Brennan, Jr. Newman gives us a fascinating portrait of Black -- the captivating charmer with the steel backbone and stronger will, and the self-taught, scholarly, cracker populist who termed himself "a rather backward country fellow."
More than a decade in the making, drawing upon an astonishing array of sources, including Black's family papers, to which Newman had exclusive access, and more than one thousand interviews, this moving, instructive biography is written with grace, sweep, and verve. A book to stand beside Beveridge's classic life of John Marshall and Catherine Drinker Bowen's popular Yankee from Olympus, Hugo Black is the extraordinary story of a man who bestrode his era like a colossus. [via]
More editions of Hugo Black: A Biography:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Interpreting the Constitution: The Debate over Original Intent'
Jack N. Rakove has assembled in this volume a variety of views that survey the debate over the extent to which the intentions of the Constitution's framers should be used in contemporary adjudication. Included are writings by former Attorney General Edwin Meese, III, former Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Robert H. Bork, Lino Graglia, H. Jefferson Powell, Charles A. Lofgren, Paul Brest, Henry Paul Monaghan, and J. Morgan Kousser. [via]
More editions of Interpreting the Constitution: The Debate over Original Intent:

› Find signed collectible books: 'John Marshall : Definer of a Nation'
More editions of John Marshall : Definer of a Nation:
› Find signed collectible books: 'John Marshall: Definer of a Nation'
It's taken for granted today that the Supreme Court has final say on how the Constitution is interpreted, but this principle--hotly debated in the republic's early years -- was established by John Marshall (1755-1835), the fourth Chief Justice. Historian Smith's definitive biography, detailed and lucid, is a model of scholarly writing for the general public. The author claims our admiration for the justice and sparks affection for the man: warm, gregarious, fond of drink, a Federalist with the common touch, a seasoned political infighter who remained on good terms with his opponents. [via]
More editions of John Marshall: Definer of a Nation:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self'
By any measure, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., led a full and remarkable life. He was tall and exceptionally attractive, especially as he aged, with piercing eyes, a shock of white hair, and prominent moustache. He was the son of a famous father (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., renowned for "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table"), a thrice-wounded veteran of the Civil War, a Harvard-educated member of Brahmin Boston, the acquaintance of Longfellow, Lowell, and Emerson, and for a time a close friend of William James. He wrote one of the classic works of American legal scholarship, The Common Law, and he served with distinction on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was actively involved in the Court's work into his nineties.
In Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, G. Edward White, the acclaimed biographer of Earl Warren and one of America's most esteemed legal scholars, provides a rounded portrait of this remarkable jurist. We see Holmes's early life in Boston and at Harvard, his ambivalent relationship with his father, and his harrowing service during the Civil War (he was wounded three times, twice nearly fatally, shot in the chest in his first action, and later shot through the neck at Antietam). White examines Holmes's curious, childless marriage (his diary for 1872 noted on June 17th that he had married Fanny Bowditch Dixwell, and the next sentence indicated that he had become the sole editor of the American Law Review) and he includes new information on Holmes's relationship with Clare Castletown. White not only provides a vivid portrait of Holmes's life, but examines in depth the inner life and thought of this preeminent legal figure. There is a full chapter devoted to The Common Law, for instance, and throughout the book, there is astute commentary on Holmes's legal writings. Indeed, White reveals that some of the themes that have dominated 20th-century American jurisprudence--including protection for free speech and the belief that "judges make the law"--originated in Holmes's work. Perhaps most important, White suggests that understanding Holmes's life is crucial to understanding his work, and he continually stresses the connections between Holmes's legal career and his personal life. For instance, his desire to distinguish himself from his father and from the "soft" literary culture of his father's generation drove him to legal scholarship of a particularly demanding kind.
White's biography of Earl Warren was hailed by Anthony Lewis on the cover of The New York Times Book Review as "serious and fascinating," and The Los Angeles Times noted that "White has gone beyond the labels and given us the man." In Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, White has produced an equally serious and fascinating biography, one that again goes beyond the labels and gives us the man himself. [via]
More editions of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest'
Deep in the granite hills of eastern Arizona in 1880, H.C. Day founded the Lazy B ranch, where U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and her brother Alan spent their youth, a time they recall in this affectionate joint memoir.
"We belonged to the Lazy B, and it belonged to each of us," write O'Connor and Day. "We thought it would always be there." Weathering events from the Great Depression to cyclical drought, they worked the ranch's 300 square miles alongside a colorful crew of cowboys, learning the ways of cattle, horses, and people, lessons they share in well-turned anecdotes. They also learned a system of values that "was simple and unsophisticated and the product of necessity," one that has followed them into the larger world. Court watchers and fans of Western writing alike will take pleasure in this multigenerational account of life on the range. --Gregory McNamee [via]
More editions of Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice'
More editions of The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Majesty of the Law : Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice'
In The Majesty of the Law, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor explores the law, her life as a Justice, and how the Court has evolved and continues to function, grow, and change as an American institution. Tracing some of the origins of American law through history, people, and ideas, OConnor sheds new light on the basics, and through personal observation she explores the development of institutions and ideas we have come to regard as fundamental.
OConnor discusses notable cases that have shaped American democracy and the Court as we know it today, and she traces the turbulent battle women have fought for a place in our nations legal system since Americas inception. Straight-talking, clear-eyed, inspiring, The Majesty of the Law is more than a reflection on OConnors own experiences as the first female Justice of the Supreme Court; it also contains a discussion of how the suffrage movement changed the lives of womenin voting booths, jury boxes, and homes across the country.
In The Majesty of the Law, Sandra Day OConnor reveals some of what she has learned and believes about American law and life, insights gleaned over her years as one of the most powerful and inspiring women in American history. [via]
More editions of The Majesty of the Law : Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment'
The First Amendment puts it this way: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Yet, in 1960, a city official in Montgomery, Alabama, sued The New York Times for libel -- and was awarded $500,000 by a local jury -- because the paper had published an ad critical of Montgomery's brutal response to civil rights protests. The centuries of legal precedent behind the Sullivan case and the U.S. Supreme Court's historic reversal of the original verdict are expertly chronicled in this gripping and wonderfully readable book by the Pulitzer Prize -- winning legal journalist Anthony Lewis. It is our best account yet of a case that redefined what newspapers -- and ordinary citizens -- can print or say.
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]
More editions of Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law'
We are all familiar with the image of the immensely clever judge who discerns the best rule of common law for the case at hand. According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a judge like this can maneuver through earlier cases to achieve the desired aim--"distinguishing one prior case on his left, straight-arming another one on his right, high-stepping away from another precedent about to tackle him from the rear, until (bravo!) he reaches the goal--good law." But is this common-law mindset, which is appropriate in its place, suitable also in statutory and constitutional interpretation? In a witty and trenchant essay, Justice Scalia answers this question with a resounding negative.In exploring the neglected art of statutory interpretation, Scalia urges that judges resist the temptation to use legislative intention and legislative history. In his view, it is incompatible with democratic government to allow the meaning of a statute to be determined by what the judges think the lawgivers meant rather than by what the legislature actually promulgated. Eschewing the judicial lawmaking that is the essence of common law, judges should interpret statutes and regulations by focusing on the text itself. Scalia then extends this principle to constitutional law. He proposes that we abandon the notion of an everchanging Constitution and pay attention to the Constitution's original meaning. Although not subscribing to the "strict constructionism" that would prevent applying the Constitution to modern circumstances, Scalia emphatically rejects the idea that judges can properly "smuggle" in new rights or deny old rights by using the Due Process Clause, for instance. In fact, such judicial discretion might lead to the destruction of the Bill of Rights if a majority of the judges ever wished to reach that most undesirable of goals. [via]
More editions of A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law'
More editions of A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law:

› Find signed collectible books: 'May It Please the Court :The First Amendment: Live Recordings and Transcripts of the Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court in Sixteen Key First Amendment Cases'
More editions of May It Please the Court:
› Find signed collectible books: 'May It Please the Court: 23 Live Recordings of Landmark Cases As Argued Before the Supreme Court, Including the Actual Voices of the Attorneys and J'
This unique insider's look at the Supreme Court in session includes live recordings and transcripts of actual landmark cases, including Miranda v. Arizona (the right to remain silent), Roe v. Wade (abortion rights), Bowers v. Hardwick (gay rights), Regents v. Bakke (reverse discrimination), Loving v. Virginia (interracial marriage), United States v. Richard Nixon (Watergate), and many others. Previously only available through a visit to the National Archive in Washington, these tapes bring pivotal moments in American legal history to life. [via]
More editions of May It Please the Court: 23 Live Recordings of Landmark Cases As Argued Before the Supreme Court, Including the Actual Voices of the Attorneys and J:

› Find signed collectible books: 'May It Please the Court: Courts, Kids, and the Constitution'
More editions of May It Please the Court: Courts, Kids, and the Constitution:

› Find signed collectible books: 'May It Please the Court: The Most Significant Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court Since 1955'
More editions of May It Please the Court: The Most Significant Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court Since 1955:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America'
Conservative talk radio host, lawyer, and frequent National Review contributor Mark R. Levin comes out firing against the United States Supreme Court in Men in Black, accusing the institution of corrupting the ideals of America's founding fathers. The court, in Levin's estimation, pursues an ideology-based activist agenda that oversteps its authority within the government. Levin examines several decisions in the court's history to illustrate his point, beginning with the landmark Marbury v. Madison case, wherein the court granted itself the power to declare acts of the other branches of government unconstitutional. He devotes later chapters to other key cases culminating in modern issues such as same-sex marriage and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Like effective attorneys do, Levin packs in copious research material and delivers his points with tremendous vigor, excoriating the justices for instances where he feels strict const! itutional constructivism gave way to biased interpretation. But Levin's definition of "activism" seems inconsistent. In the case of McCain-Feingold, the court declined to rule on a bill already passed by congress and signed by the president, but Levin, who thinks the bill violates the First Amendment, still accuses them of activism even when they were actually passive. To his talk-radio listeners, Levin's hard-charging style and dire warnings of the court's direction will strike a resonant tone of alarm, though the hyperbole may be a bit off-putting to the uninitiated. As an attack on the vagaries of decisions rendered by the Supreme Court and on some current justices, Men in Black scores points and will likely lead sympathetic juries to conviction. --John Moe [via]
More editions of Men In Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Of Power and Right: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and America's Constitutional Revolution'
More editions of Of Power and Right: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and America's Constitutional Revolution:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States'
In Democracy in America, De Tocqueville observed that there is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one. Two hundred years of American history have certainly born out the truth of this remark. Whether a controversy is political, economic, or social, whether it focuses on child labor, slavery, prayer in public schools, war powers, busing, abortion, business monopolies, or capital punishment, eventually the battle is taken to court. And the ultimate venue for these vital struggles is the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Supreme Court is a prism through which the entire life of our nation is magnified and illuminated, and through which we have defined ourselves as a people.
Now, in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, readers have a rich source of information about one of the central institutions of American life. Everything one would want to know about the Supreme Court is here, in more than a thousand alphabetically arranged entries. There are biographies of every justice who ever sat on the Supreme Court (with pictures of each) as well as entries on rejected nominees and prominent judges (such as Learned Hand), on presidents who had an important impact on--or conflict with--the Court (including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt), and on other influential figures (from Alexander Hamilton to Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Supreme Court Building). More than four hundred entries examine every major case that the court has decided, from Marbury v. Madison (which established the Court's power to declare federal laws unconstitutional) and Scott v. Sandford (the Dred Scott Case) to Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. In addition, there are extended essays on the major issues that have confronted the Court (from slavery to national security, capital punishment to religion, from affirmative action to the Vietnam War), entries on judicial matters and legal terms (ranging from judicial review and separation of powers to amicus brief and habeas corpus), articles on all Amendments to the Constitution, and an extensive, four-part history of the Court. And as in all Oxford Companions, the contributors combine scholarship with engaging insight, giving us a sense of the personality and the inner workings of the Court. They examine everything from the wanderings of the Supreme Court (the first session was held on the second floor of the Royal Exchange Building in New York City, and the Court at times has met in a Congressional committee room, a tavern, a rented house, and finally, in 1935, its own building), to the Jackson-Black Feud and the clouded resignation of Abe Fortas, to the Supreme Court's press room and the paintings and sculptures adorning the Supreme Court building.
The decisions of the Supreme Court have touched--and will continue to influence--every corner of American society. A comprehensive, authoritative guide to the Supreme Court, this volume is an essential reference source for everyone interested in the workings of this vital institution and in the multitude of issues it has confronted over the course of its history.
[via]
More editions of The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States'
The Supreme Court has continued to write constitutional history over the thirteen years since publication of the highly acclaimed first edition of The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court. Two new justices have joined the high court, more than 800 cases have been decided, and a good deal of new scholarship has appeared on many of the topics treated in the Companion. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist presided over the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, and the Court as a whole played a decisive and controversial role in the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. Under Rehnquists's leadership, a bare majority of the justices have rewritten significant areas of the law dealing with federalism, sovereign immunity, and the commerce power.
This new edition includes new entries on key cases and fully updated treatment of crucial areas of constitutional law, such as abortion, freedom of religion, school desegregation, freedom of speech, voting rights, military tribunals, and the rights of the accused. These developments make the second edition of this accessible and authoritative guide essential for judges, lawyers, academics, journalists, and anyone interested in the impact of the Court's decisions on American society. [via]
More editions of The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A People's History of the Supreme Court'
More editions of A People's History of the Supreme Court:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution'
The savvy, chatty author of The Courage of Their Convictions brings us a scholarly reckoning of the 200-plus years of decisions made by the highest court in the land. Not surprisingly (and justifiably, given his erudite arguments), Peter H. Irons represents the court's work as a never-ending appeal of the powerless to the powerful: of the just over 100 supreme justices who have sat on the court, all but two have been white, all but two have been men, and all but seven have been Christian, whereas the supplicants to our nation's highest bar are typically racial minorities, women, and deviants in some way from the religious and social mainstream.
Taking a representative (if not comprehensive) accounting of the Supreme Court's most significant decisions, Irons puts cultural and political context--and a human face--to the parties involved, painting an absorbing and involving picture of landmark cases that readers are likely to recall but not fully understand. Whether he's explicating the tortuous history of freedom-seeking slave Dred Scott or explaining the "a Jap's a Jap" reasoning behind the legal exculpation of World War II internment camps, Irons reminds us of the court's spotted history while still conveying the deep affection he has for it. (Includes a thoughtful appendix with the complete text of the Constitution and suggestions for further reading.) --Paul Hughes [via]
More editions of A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Protect and Defend'
Richard North Patterson, whose legal thrillers have won him legions of devoted mystery fans, shows off his superb pacing and narrative gifts as well as his ability to create vividly realized characters in this compelling novel of late-term abortion, parental consent, and the battle over a nominee for chief justice of the Supreme Court. Unlike Patterson's typical courtroom dramas, the name of this game isn't murder; it's the body politic that's bleeding. When newly elected Democratic president Kerry Kilcannon nominates appeals court judge Caroline Masters to the top spot on the court, he knows he'll have a fight on his hands. Leading the opposition is his political rival, MacDonald Gage, the GOP majority leader who owes his soul and career to the Christian right wing. They're suspicious of Masters even before a politically charged case involving a teenager whose parents refuse to allow her to terminate a disastrous pregnancy ends up in her court. More principled than Gage, but equally adamant, is Republican senator Chad Palmer, who, like Masters, harbors his own potentially career-destroying secret.
Masters is an intriguing character, a woman whose judicial integrity, personal privacy, and political ambitions collide when she casts a tie-breaking vote on the constitutionality of the recently enacted Protection of Life bill. Not only young Mary Anne Tierney's future is at stake: so are the reproductive rights of all women, the resilience of the judicial system, and the personal lives of innocent bystanders who will be sacrificed on the altar of the First Amendment--the public's right to know, and the media's right to tell. Moving swiftly between the courts of public opinion and the federal judiciary, from San Francisco to the nation's capital, Patterson tells a mesmerizing story that's been praised by political and legal luminaries such as Mario Cuomo, Barbara Boxer, and Alan Dershowitz. But don't let that stop you. This up-to-date version of Advise and Consent is a provocative read that will resonate with political junkies as well as those who've made bestsellers out of Patterson's more typical genre thrillers. --Jane Adams [via]
More editions of Protect and Defend:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Quarrels That Have Shaped the Constitution'
More editions of Quarrels That Have Shaped the Constitution:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rehnquist Choice'
In 1971, William Rehnquist seemed the perfect choice to fill a seat on the United States Supreme Court. He was a young, well-polished lawyer who shared many of President Richard Nixon's philosophies and faced no major objections from the Senate. But in truth, the nomination was anything but straightforward. Now, for the first time, former White House counsel John Dean tells the improbable story of Rehnquist's appointment.
Dean weaves a gripping account packed with stunning new revelations: of a remarkable power play by Nixon to stack the court in his favor by forcing resignations; of Rehnquist himself, who played a role in the questionable ousting of Justice Abe Fortas; and of Nixon's failed impeachment attempt against William 0. Douglas. In his initial confirmation hearings, Rehnquist provided outrageous and unbelievable responses to questions about his controversial activities in the '50s and '60s -- yet he was confirmed with little opposition. It was only later, during his confirmation as Chief Justice, that his testimony would come under fire -- raising serious questions as to whether he had perjured himself
Using newly released tapes, his own papers, and documents unearthed from the National Archives, John Dean offers readers a place in the White House inner circle, providing an unprecedented look at a government process, and a stunning expose of the man who has influenced the United States Supreme Court for the last thirty years. [via]
More editions of The Rehnquist Choice:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rehnquist Choice : The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court'
More editions of The Rehnquist Choice : The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rise of Modern Judicial Review: From Constitutional Interpretation to Judge-Made Law'
More editions of The Rise of Modern Judicial Review: From Constitutional Interpretation to Judge-Made Law:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice'
Attorney Ring has assembled Justice Antonin Scalia's most scathing, most poignant, and most accessible opinions to date. Specific rulings and speeches are explained as Ring invites readers into the judicial world. [via]
More editions of Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Simple Justice: The History of Brown V. Board of Educationand Black America's Struggle for Equality'
The Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed school segregation and culminated a century long social and legal struggle to establish black equality in the U.S. [via]
More editions of Simple Justice: The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle Forequality:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Simple Truth'
Rufus Harms is rotting in a Virginia military prison. As readers learn in the terse opening of The Simple Truth, he was convicted 25 years ago of the brutal killing of a young girl. Readers also learn that Rufus did not commit the crime; out of a haze of memories and with fragments of evidence, he has reconstructed the truth about the horrid event that ruined his life. He knows his discovery could cost him his life, so he breaks from prison after sending an appeal to the Supreme Court that details a massive conspiracy tied into the foundations of Washington.
The complex drama of Rufus Harms is only one of the interwoven threads in this massive, violent legal thriller that also draws from the vocabulary of hard-boiled crime fiction. Baldacci offers glimpses into the arcane politics of the high court, where Justice Elizabeth Knight wages war with the manipulative Chief Justice Harold Ramsay. And while Harms struggles to keep out of harm's way and the justices duke it out, Supreme Court law clerk Sara Evans toils with ex-cop John Fiske to discover the import of Harms's appeal (and, simultaneously, to uncover the murderer of Mike Fiske, John's law clerk-brother and the original holder of the appeal). Their interest in the document apparently draws the attention of the same deadly conspirators who manipulated Harms over two decades earlier. While the armed mayhem sometimes rises to the point of excess, Baldacci's novel continues to offer new surprises until the final pages. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
More editions of Simple Truth:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court Judical Biography'
More editions of Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court Judical Biography:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court'
With its closed chambers and formal language, the Supreme Court tends to deflect drama away from its vastly powerful proceedings. But its mysteries hold plenty of intrigue for anyone with the access to uncover them. In Supreme Conflict, Jan Crawford Greenburg has that access, and then some. With high-placed sourcing that would make Bob Woodward proud, she tells the story of the Court's recent decades and of the often-thwarted attempts by three conservative presidents to remake the Court in their image. Among the revelations are the surprising influence of the most-maligned justice, Clarence Thomas, and the political impact of personal relations among these nine very human colleagues-for-life. Written for everyday readers rather than legal scholars, her account sidesteps theoretical subtleties for a compelling story of the personalities who breathe life into our laws. --Tom Nissley
Crawford graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, and was a legal affairs reporter for the Chicago Tribune and Supreme Court correspondent for PBS's NewsHour before becoming the legal correspondent for ABC News. We had the chance to ask her a few questions about Supreme Conflict:
Questions for Jan Crawford Greenburg
Amazon.com: How hard was it to get the access to justices and clerks that you had for this book? Does the culture of the Court promote that kind of openness about their deliberations?
Jan Crawford Greenburg: Hard! And let me tell you it took some time--they weren't flinging open the doors of their chambers for the first few years I was covering the Court. It takes awhile to build relationships and trust, and I was fortunate enough to do that during the dozen years I've been covering the Supreme Court. As for openness, I think the culture of the Court instead promotes anonymity and privacy. The justices aren't like the people across the street in Congress, or down Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House. They don't hold press conferences or solicit media coverage of their views. They speak through their opinions. I was fortunate that they also chose to speak with me for this important book about the direction of the Supreme Court and its role in our lives.
Amazon.com: Harry Blackmun's notes must be a treasure chest for Court historians. Could you describe what you found there?
Greenburg: A treasure chest is an understatement. Harry Blackmun took extraordinarily detailed notes--almost breathtaking in their scope and level of detail. (He would even write down what lawyers were wearing when they'd appear in Court to argue a case.) He recorded the justices' comments during their private conferences--when they discuss cases--and he took down their votes. And he kept all the key memos and letters that the justices would send back and forth when they were discussing a case. It was a tremendous window into the Court's inner sanctum, during some of the most pivotal years for the institution.
Amazon.com: One of the biggest revelations of your book is your characterization of Clarence Thomas as far more influential, even in his first year on the Court, than he's usually given credit for. Could you describe what his role on the Court has been?
Greenburg: Clarence Thomas has been the most maligned justice in modern history--and also the most misunderstood and mischaracterized. I found conclusive evidence that far from being Antonin Scalia's intellectual understudy, Thomas has had a substantial role in shaping the direction of the Court--from his very first week on the bench. The early storyline on Thomas was that he was just following Scalia's direction, or as one columnist at the time wrote, "Thomas Walks in Scalia's Shoes." That is patently false, as the documents and notes in the Blackmun papers unquestionably show. If any justice was changing his vote to join the other that first year, it was Scalia joining Thomas, not the other way around. But his clear and forceful views affected the Court in unexpected ways. Although he shored up conservative positions, his opinions also caused moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to back away and join the justices on the Left.
Amazon.com: Not every Supreme Court confirmation is a battle, even when the Senate and the President are from different parties. What separates the candidates who sail through from the ones who get put through the wringer?
Greenburg: The recent appointment of Samuel Alito shows a justice with a clearly conservative record can get confirmed--and even pick up some votes from Democrats. Maybe the secret is developing a reputation as a fair and nonpartisan judge on a federal appeals court. At his hearings, liberal and conservative judges who had worked with him on the appeals court testified in his behalf, as did his law clerks--some of whom were self-identified liberals. Alito was the conservative counterpart to Clinton nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She had been an outspoken advocate for liberal causes (including the ACLU), but she'd developed a reputation as a fair and thoughtful judge on the federal appeals court, garnering respect from both sides.
Amazon.com: How much do Americans know about how their federal courts work? What should they know?
Greenburg: Most Americans, understandably, think about trials and drama when the issue of the courts is raised. But the appeals courts--and the Supreme Court--remain mysterious, even though those courts have an enormous impact on American life. The judiciary is one of the three branches of government, but its decisions take on outsized importance at times. It can provide a vital check against abuse of individual rights by government--but it also can usurp the role of the people when it reaches out and takes on issues that more appropriately belong in the purview of the other branches.
Amazon.com: Even though you show how our expectations for where new members will take the Court are so often wrong, I'll ask you anyway: What do you expect in the next few years from the Roberts Court?
Greenburg: To be more conservative than the one led by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. John Roberts himself is a solid judicial conservative who believes the Court has too often taken on issues that belong in the realm of elected legislatures. He is advocating a more restrained approach, with greater consensus among the justices. In addition, Justice Alito replaced key swing-voter Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court's first female justice. O'Connor's vote often carried the day on the closely divided Court--and she typically sided with liberals on social issues like abortion, affirmative action, and religion. Alito is more conservative, and I expect to see the Court turn to the right on those and other issues.
[via]More editions of Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Supreme Court'
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist sets a simple goal for himself: "This book is designed to convey to the interested, informed layman, as well as lawyers who do not specialize in constitutional law, a better understanding of the role of the Supreme Court in American government." He succeeds fabulously. The Supreme Court, an updated version of a book originally published in 1987, is a succinct and readable account of the Court's past and present. Rehnquist avoids getting bogged down in the minutia of particular cases, even as he deftly covers the details of several extremely important ones, such as Marbury v. Madison and Dred Scott v. Sandford.
The most interesting parts of the book explain how the current Court goes about its business. In these fascinating chapters, Rehnquist consistently includes nifty touches, such as how his law clerks decide who gets to work on which cases and the strict seating protocol that is followed when the nine justices--and nobody else--sit in conference to discuss their votes. If there's a knock on the door, it's the most junior justice who must answer. They don't really discuss cases at all during these meetings, but rather state their views. "I do not believe that conference discussion changes many votes," writes the Chief Justice. Oral arguments, on the other hand, are different: "In a significant minority of the cases in which I have heard oral argument, I have left the bench feeling differently about a case than I did when I came to the bench."
Rehnquist briefly lays out his own theory of jurisprudence in a short concluding chapter: "Go beyond the language of the Constitution, and the meaning that may be fairly ascribed to the language, and into the consciences of individual judges, is to embark on a journey that is treacherous indeed." Yet The Supreme Court largely skips comment on existing controversies, such as abortion rights, race-based policies, or the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. The book is exactly what Rehnquist promises: An accessible and enlightening introduction to a vital institution. --John J. Miller [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Supreme Court: How It Was, How It Is'
For the first time, a sitting chief justice has written a book about the operation of the United States Supreme Court and in doing so has made it both fascinating and comprehensible to the average citizen. Photos. [via]
More editions of The Supreme Court: How It Was, How It Is:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Supreme Court: The Personalities And Rivalries That Defined America'
More editions of The Supreme Court: The Personalities And Rivalries That Defined America:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tempting of America'
Judge Bork shares a personal account of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on his nomination as well as his view on politics versus the law. [via]
More editions of The Tempting of America:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law.'
More editions of Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law.:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary'
Washington Post correspondent and TV commentator Juan Williams has produced an illuminating look at a true giant of 20th-century American politics. Williams retells the story of Thurgood Marshall's successful desegregation of public schools in the U.S. with his victory in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, followed by his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1967 for a 24-year term. But he also recounts how W.E.B. Du Bois, then the head of the NAACP, gave a cold shoulder to the younger Marshall (who eventually helped oust Du Bois from the organization), and describes the tug of war between Marshall and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, as well as the mind games Lyndon Johnson played on Marshall before nominating him for the Supreme Court. Readers also learn about Marshall's relationship with his replacement, Clarence Thomas, which was surprisingly civil given their contrary views on affirmative action. Williams has captured many examples of Thurgood Marshall's heroism and humanity in this comprehensive yet readable biography of a complex, combative, and courageous civil rights figure. --Eugene Holley Jr. [via]
More editions of Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Turning Right: The Making of the Rehnquist Supreme Court'
More editions of Turning Right: The Making of the Rehnquist Supreme Court:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Warren Court and American Politics'
More editions of The Warren Court and American Politics:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice'
More editions of The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice: A Critical Issue'
More editions of The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice: A Critical Issue:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Yankee from Olympus: Justice Holmes and His Family'
More editions of Yankee from Olympus: Justice Holmes and His Family:
