Overview
Despite its importance to the life of the nation and all its citizens, the Supreme Court remains a mystery to most Americans, its workings widely felt but rarely seen firsthand. In this book, journalists who cover the Court-acting as the eyes and ears of not just the American people, but the Constitution itself-give us a rare close look into its proceedings, the people behind them, and the complex, often fascinating ways in which justice is ultimately served. Their narratives form an intimate account of a year in the life of the Supreme Court. The cases heard by the Surpreme Court are, first and foremost, disputes involving real people with actual stories. The accidents and twists of circumstance that have brought these people to the last resort of litigation can make for compelling drama. The contributors to this volume bring these dramatic stories to life, using them as a backdrop for the larger issues of law and social policy that constitute the Court’s business: abortion, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, the right of privacy, crime, violence, discrimination, and the death penalty. In the course of these narratives, the authors describe the personalities and jurisprudential leanings of the various Justices, explaining how the interplay of these characters and theories about the Constitution interact to influence the Court’s decisions. Highly readable and richly informative, this book offers an unusually clear and comprehensive portrait of one of the most influential institutions in modern American life.
Full Product Details
Author: Rodney A. Smolla ,
Rodney A. Smolla
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.90cm
, Height: 2.40cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.590kg
ISBN: 9780822316657
ISBN 10: 082231665
Pages: 277
Publication Date: 28 July 1995
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Awaiting stock
The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you.
Reviews
Smolla's book -- an effort at peeling back the layers of a 'process of constitutional debate and resolution, a process uniquely American' -- has something for anyone with varying levels of interest in the nation's highest court. It serves well those looking for extra insight into cases while undertaking the arduous task of putting a human face on what comes before the bench. <br>--Julie Samuels, NationalJournal.com
You don&rsquo;t have to be a lawyer or a Supreme Court junkie to enjoy this book: it is as good a description&mdash;for a general audience as well as a legally trained one&mdash;of the real people and cases that come before the Supreme Court as we have ever had. This book is a joy to read.&quot;&mdash;Floyd Abrams, Constitutional attorney
""An enlightening series of journalistic snapshots of the Supreme Court by those who portray it best-reporters who have made a specialty of covering the nation’s highest Court.""-Fred Graham, Chief Anchor and Managing Editor, Court TV You don’t have to be a lawyer or a Supreme Court junkie to enjoy this book: it is as good a description-for a general audience as well as a legally trained one-of the real people and cases that come before the Supreme Court as we have ever had. This book is a joy to read.""-Floyd Abrams, Constitutional attorney
Eight legal correspondents and two law professors submit workmanlike essays on some major decisions of the 1992-93 Supreme Court. Editor Smolla (Marshall-Wythe School of Law at William and Mary College; Free Speech in an Open Society, 1992) had a fine idea: Assign top Supreme Court cases to top Supreme Court reporters and gather their reflections to provide a sense of constitutional process for a single year. But the result is a drab, myopic collection, too technical and bloodless for lay Court-watchers, yet too superficial and pedantic for lawyers. The essays, notably uniform in style and perspective, fail to do justice to some inherently fascinating subjects: hate-speech laws, habeas review of death-penalty cases, age discrimination, warrantless drug searches. Occasionally the reporters include a revealing bit of gossip (such as Anthony Kennedy's distaste for Antonin Scalia's slashing internal memoranda, known as Ninograms ), but the more common practice here is to insert, sometimes irrelevantly, a boilerplate mini-bio of a justice casting a critical vote. Two essays stand out: Writing on the Zobrest case (in which the Court found no First Amendment problem in providing a state-appointed interpreter for a deaf student attending a religious school), Knight-Ridder reporter Aaron Epstein briskly explores the facts and speculates knowledgeably about future church/state issues facing the Court. And Stephen Wermeil, former Supreme Court correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, contributes a humane, lucid account of a Georgia teen suing her school district for damages when the school's football coach sexually harassed her. Smolla's editorial comments, however, are redundant, patronizing, and oddly worshipful of Scalia ( a magnificent conservative ). A yawner from the Fourth Estate. (Kirkus Reviews)
Author Information
Rodney A. Smolla is Allen Professor of Law at the School of Law, University of Richmond. His books include Suing the Press, Law of Defamation, Jerry Falwell v. Larry Flynt, Free Speech in an Open Society, Smolla and Nimmer on Freedom of Speech, and Federal Civil Rights Acts.
