Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment - Publisher's Marketing: "In 2008, the Supreme Court had its first opportunity in seven decades to decide a question at the heart of one of America's most impassioned debates: Do Americans have the right to possess guns? Gun Control on Trial will tell the story of the case, now known as District of Columbia vs Heller, which promises to be the most significant court decision of the decade."

Call number: SAC - KF3941 .D64 2008

Call number: OPC - KF3941 .D64 2008

Dred Scott and the Politics of Slavery - Publisher's Marketing: "The slave Dred Scott claimed that his residence in a free state transformed him into a free man. His lawsuit took many twists and turns before making its way to the Supreme Court in 1856. But when the Court ruled against him, the ruling sent shock waves through the nation and helped lead to civil war. Writing for the 7-to-2 majority, Chief Justice Roger Taney asserted that blacks were not and never could be citizens. Taney also ruled that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, upsetting the balance of slave and free states. Earl Maltz now offers a new look at this landmark case, presenting Dred Scott as a turning point in an already contentious national debate. Maltz's accessible account depicts Dred Scott as both a contributing factor to war and the result of a political climate that had grown so threatening to the South that overturning the Missouri Compromise was considered essential. As the nation continued its rapid expansion, Southerners became progressively more fearful of the free states' growing political clout. In that light, the ruling from a Court filled with justices sympathetic to the Southern cause, though far from surprising helped light the long fuse that eventually exploded into Civil War. Maltz offers an uncommonly balanced look at the case, taking Southern concerns seriously to cast new light on why proponents of slavery saw things as they did. He presents the arguments of all the parties impartially, tracks the sequence of increasingly strained compromises between pro- and anti-slavery forces, and demonstrate how political and sectional influences infiltrated the legal issues. He then traces the impact of the case on Northern and Southern publicopinion, showing how a decision meant to resolve the question of slavery in the territories only aggravated sectional animosity. By presenting a more nuanced picture of the pro-Southern justices on the Court, Maltz offers readers a better understanding of how they came to their opinions, even as they failed to anticipate the impact their decision would have--a miscalculation that to some degree undermined the Court's power and authority within the American political system. Ultimately, as Maltz suggests, this is a story of judicial failure, one that remains a vital chapter in American law and one that must be mastered by anyone wishing to understand the peculiar nature of our national history."

Call number: SAC - KF4545 .S5 M35

Thomas was born in rural Georgia on June 23, 1948, into a life marked by poverty and hunger. His parents divorced when Thomas was still a baby, and his father moved north to Philadelphia, leaving his young mother to raise him and his brother and sister on the ten dollars a week she earned as a maid. At age seven, Thomas and his six-year-old brother were sent to live with his mother's father, Myers Anderson, and her stepmother in their Savannah home. It was a move that would forever change Thomas's life.

His grandfather, whom he called "Daddy," was a black man with a strict work ethic, trying to raise a family in the years of Jim Crow. Thomas witnessed his grandparents' steadfastness despite injustices, their hopefulness despite bigotry, and their deep love for their country. His own quiet ambition would propel him to Holy Cross and Yale Law School, and eventually--despite a bitter, highly contested public confirmation--to the highest court in the land. In this candid and deeply moving memoir, a quintessential American tale of hardship and grit, Clarence Thomas recounts his astonishing journey for the first time, and pays homage to the man who made it possible.

Intimately and eloquently, Thomas speaks out, revealing the pieces of his life he holds dear, detailing the suffering and injustices he has overcome, including the acrimonious and polarizing Senate hearing involving a former aide, Anita Hill, and the depression and despair it created in his own life and the lives of those closest to him. "My Grandfather's Son" is the story of a determined man whose faith, courage, and perseverance inspired him to rise up against all odds and achieve his dreams."

Call number: SAC - KF8745.T48 A3 2007

Call number: OPC - KF8745.T48 A3 2007

Call number: PAL - KF8745.T48 A3 2007

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court - Publisher's Marketing: "Bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin takes you into the chambers of the most important--and secret--legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, and reveals the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land.
Just in time for the 2008 presidential election--where the future of the Court will be at stake--Toobin reveals an institution at a moment of transition, when decades of conservative disgust with the Court have finally produced a conservative majority, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, presidential power, and church-state relations.
Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, "The Nine" tells the story of the Court through personalities--from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of "Bush v. Gore"--and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.
"The Nine" is the book bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin was born to write. A CNN senior legal analyst and "New Yorker" staff writer, no one is more superbly qualified to profile the nine justices."

Call number: SAC - KF8748 .T66 2007

Call number: OPC - KF8748 .T66 2007

Call number: PAL - KF8748 .T66 2007

The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America - Publisher's Marketing: "A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives
"The Supreme Court" is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.
In this compelling work of character-driven history, Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Court through the personal and philosophical rivalries on the bench that transformed the law--and by extension, our lives. The story begins with the great Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson, cousins from the Virginia elite whose differing visions of America set the tone for the Court's first hundred years. The tale continues after the Civil War with Justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who clashed over the limits of majority rule. Rosen then examines the Warren Court era through the lens of the liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, for whom personality loomed larger than ideology. He concludes with a pairing from our own era, the conservatives William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, only one of whom was able to build majorities in support of his views.
Through these four rivalries, Rosen brings to life the perennial conflict that has animated the Court--between those justices guided by strong ideology and those who forge coalitions and adjust to new realities. He illuminates the relationship between judicial temperament and judicial success or failure. The stakes are nothing less than the future of American jurisprudence."

Call number: OPC - KF8744 .R67 2007

Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas - Publisher's Marketing: "Two journalists track the personal odyssey of Thomas and offer a window into a man who straddles two different worlds and is uneasy in both--and whose divided personality and conservative political philosophy will deeply influence American life for years to come."

Call number: SAC - KF8745.T48 M47

Call number: PAL - KF8745.T48 M47

The Myth of Judicial Activism: Making Sense of Supreme Court Decisions - Publisher's Marketing: "This carefully considered book is a welcome addition to the debate over "judicial activism." Constitutional scholar Kermit Roosevelt III offers an elegantly simple way to resolve the heated discord between conservatives, who argue that the Constitution is immutable, and progressives, who insist that it is a living document that must be reinterpreted in new cultural contexts so that its meaning evolves. Roosevelt uses plain language and compelling examples to explain how the Constitution can be both a constant and an organic document.
Recent years have witnessed an increasing drumbeat of complaints about judicial behavior, focusing particularly on Supreme Court decisions that critics charge are reflections of the Justices' political preferences rather than enforcement of the Constitution. The author takes a balanced look at these controversial decisions through a compelling new lens of constitutional interpretation. He clarifies the task of the Supreme Court in constitutional cases, then sets out a model to describe how the Court creates doctrine to implement the meaning of the Constitution. Finally, Roosevelt uses this model to show which decisions can be justified as legitimate and which cannot."

Call number: OPC - KF8742 .R65 2006

The Pursuit of Justice: Supreme Court Decisions That Shaped America - Publisher's Marketing: "With a survey of the thirty Supreme Court cases that, in the opinion of U.S. Supreme Court justices and leading civics educators and legal historians, are the most important for American citizens to understand, The Pursuit of Justice is the perfect companion for those wishing to learn more about American civics and government. The cases range across three centuries of American history, including such landmarks as Marbury v. Madison (1803), which established the principle of judicial review; Scott v. Sandford (1857), which inflamed the slavery argument in the United States and led to the Civil War; Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which memorialized the concept of separate but equal; and Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which overturned Plessy. Dealing with issues of particular concern to students, such as voting, school prayer, search and seizure, and affirmative action, and broad democratic concepts such as separation of powers, federalism, and separation of church and state, the book covers all the major cases specified in the national and state civics and American history standards.
For each case, there is an introductory essay providing historical background and legal commentary as well as excerpts from the decision(s); related documents such as briefs or evidence, with headnotes and/or marginal commentary, some possibly in facsimile; and features or sidebars on principal players in the decisions, whether attorneys, plaintiffs, defendants, or justices. An introductory essay defines the criteria for selecting the cases and setting them in the context of American history and government, and a concluding essay suggests the role that the Court will play in the future."

Call number: PAL - KF4549 .H35 2006

The Supreme Court: A New Edition of the Chief Justice's Classic History - Publisher's Marketing: "Fifteen years after he became the first sitting Chief Justice to write a book about the United States Supreme Court, William H. Rehnquist has added new chapters and substantially revised his classic work.
"The Supreme Court begins with the personal story of William Rehnquist's introduction to the Court as a law clerk to Justice Robert Jackson in 1952. From there it describes the Court's early evolution and function in our small, young democracy. Finally, it explains how the Court operates today.
Using biographical sketches of successive chief justices and associate justices and describing landmark cases, Rehnquist shows us how, as our country has grown and our politics have changed, the Court has moved in tandem with the executive and legislative branches to become the diverse and complex body we see in the present. The dramatic case of Marbury v. Madison, in which the Court first established its authority to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional, and the ill-starred Dred Scott decision, which held that Congress might not exclude slavery from a territory-a decision that touched a raw nerve in the national consciousness-are two of the disputes described in detail.
In his intriguing analysis of the growth of our railroad system-which quickly spanned the nation, causing small towns to mortgage their futures for the right to a rail line-Rehnquist shows how first states and cities, and then the national government, sought to regulate this new in-dustry, and how the constitutional questions raised by those regulations were resolved by the Supreme Court. He also treats in detail the relationship between the executive and judicial branches-and the sort of friction between themthat culminated in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Court-packing plan. Finally, the Chief Justice explains how the Supreme Court must necessarily limit itself to deciding cases that have a general public importance be-yond the concerns of the individual litigants.
"The Supreme Court takes us into the Court's conference room and the justices' chambers, providing an instructive view of the operation of the Court on a day-to-day basis. We see the role played by the law clerks, and how the 4,000-odd petitions for certiorari each year are sifted in order to produce the approximately 100 cases the Court hears and decides on their merits. With grace and wit, Rehnquist describes both the least and the most effective methods of oral argument, what happens at the conferences of the justices, how decisions are reached, and how the majority and minority opinions are assigned and circulated.
This is a unique and valuable book, lucid, informative, and a delight to read. It stands as an important work on the operation and history of our highest Court."

Call number: SAC - KF8742 .R47 2001

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary - Publisher's Marketing: "The bestselling author of "Eyes on the Prize" has written the definitive biography of the great lawyer and Supreme Court justice. According to Williams, Thurgood Marshall was a true revolutionary, the guiding intelligence behind the civil rights movement, and the source of the nation's transformation in the 20th century. of photos."

Call number: SAC - KF8745.M34 W55 1998

May It Please the Court: The First Amendment: Transcripts of the Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court in Sixteen Key First Amendment Cases - Publisher's Marketing: "This sequel to the bestselling "May It Please the Court" focuses on key First Amendment cases, illustrating the most controversial debates over issues of free speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble."

Call number: PAL - KF4770 .M35 1997

Understanding Supreme Court Opinions

Call number: PAL - KF8742 .V36 1997

Decision: How the Supreme Court Decides Cases - Publisher's Marketing: "Decision days appear to outsiders as among the most dramatic events on the Supreme Court calendar. One thinks, for instance, of Chief Justice Earl Warren, reading the unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education in a courtroom pervaded by tension. But the real drama of Brown and other Supreme Court cases may well have been what went on behind the scenes. Rarely do the arguments of counsel--brilliant though they may appear to the courtroom audience--dictate the decision in an important Supreme Court case. Rather, the crucial argument in a case takes place privately among the Justices after the public hearing.
Decision provides a unique behind-the-scenes look at the Supreme Court and how its Justices decide cases. Distinguished author Bernard Schwartz, described by The New York Times as "one of the nation's leading legal scholars," uses confidential conference notes, draft opinions, memoranda, letters, and interviews to tell what really goes on behind the red velour curtain. Cases and anecdotes, woven into deft discussions of the Justices and how they function, provide unmatched insights into our high tribunal. We read of the conferences where the Justices cast their votes, the decisions as to who will write opinions (one of the most critical choices made by the Chief Justice), the often extensive give and take of the draft opinion, and the intense lobbying between Justices that influences vote changes (it was Chief Justice Earl Warren's pressure on Justice Reed in Brown that made the final vote unanimous).
Schwartz focuses on the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, providing not just vivid portraits of the Chief Justices themselves, but also profiles of many AssociateJustices in action--including Felix Frankfurter, Byron R. White, Sandra Day O'Connor, William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and John Paul Stevens. And Schwartz includes an eye-opening discussion of the expanding role of the Justices' clerks, revealing that they are no longer merely a "staff of assistants." Instead, they have evolved into a sort of "Junior Supreme Court," which performs a major part of the judicial role--including the writing of opinions--delegated by the Constitution to the Justices themselves.
Decision gives readers a privileged look at countless cases throughout the Court's history, from the Dred Scott decision to Miranda v. Arizona to the controversial decision in Roe v. Wade to United States v. Nixon (the Watergate tapes case). Highly readable, yet written with impeccable scholarship, Decision shows the Justices in action as never before. Everything you wanted to know about the Supreme Court and were afraid to ask is here, in a revealing work on the institution that has had such an impact on our law and our life."

Call number: OPC - KF8742 .S323 1996