Judicial activism is condemned by both right and left, for good reason: lawless courts are a threat to republican government. But challenging conventional wisdom, constitutional litigator Clint Bolick argues in David's Hammer that far worse is a judiciary that allows the other branches of government to run roughshod over precious liberties. For better or for worse, only a vigorous judiciary can enforce the limits on executive and legislative action,...

"FRAUD ON-and in-THE COURT" tells D'Arcy Straub's story of following a vein of corruption within the federal judiciary that ultimately leads to the Supreme Court. On the second day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2017, Neil Gorsuch testified, "A wise, old judge, kind of like Judge Johnson, you're going to hear from; he's going to come talk to you from Colorado, a hero of mine, known me since I was a tot…." Upon...

After simmering in the background through the nineties, Iraq burst into the awareness of many when it became a battleground against the war on terror under the Bush administration. Few realize that in the midst of the fierce policy battles, one partially implemented state-building exercise took root, and Iraq became the first country in the Middle East, democracy or otherwise, to have a constitutionally mandated independent judicial branch.In The...

Examines the critical role assumed by the U. S. judiciary in balancing concerns about national security with the protection of liberty after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent responses by the U.S. federal government have raised fundamental questions about civil liberties in both domestic and international laws. As a result, the U.S. judiciary, out of its responsibility for...

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...

Guaranteed to give the reader a deeper understanding of America's most powerful judicial body, John Yoo, professor of law at UC Berkeley, and Robert Delahunty, professor of law at the University of St. Thomas detail in sprightly, slightly irreverent manner how the black robed judges who make up the U.S. Supreme Court have swung like a pendulum from saviors of the Republic to super-legislators who usurp the roll of Congress and dictate law from the...

Recounting controversial First Amendment cases from the Red Scare era to Citizens United, William Bennett Turner-a Berkeley law professor who has argued three cases before the Supreme Court-shows how we've arrived at our contemporary understanding of free speech. His strange cast of heroes and villains, some drawn from cases he has litigated, includes Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Ku Klux Klansmen, the world's leading pornographer, prison wardens,...

"A groundbreaking book . . . revealing the systemic, everyday problems in our courts that must be addressed if justice is truly to be served."-Doris Kearns Goodwin Attorney and journalist Amy Bach spent eight years investigating the widespread courtroom failures that each day upend lives across America. What she found was an assembly-line approach to justice: a system that rewards mediocre advocacy, bypasses due process, and shortchanges both defendants...

Examines how the Supreme Court has banished free expression from shopping malls and other public spaces. In spite of their public attractions and millions of visitors, most shopping malls are now off-limits to free speech and expressive activity. The same may be said about many other public spaces and marketplaces in American cities and suburbs, leaving scholars and other observers to wonder where civic engagement is lawfully permitted in the United...

"Winner of the 2006 James Boyd White Prize, Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities" Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College and Five College Fortieth Anniversary Professor. He is author, coauthor, or editor of more than fifty books, including When the State Kills and Law, Violence, and the Possibility of Justice (both Princeton), and Divorce Lawyers and...