Did the Rehnquist Court, which followed the liberal Warren Court and the moderate Burger Court, achieve a conservative counterrevolution? Using quantitative data to supplement detailed opinion analysis, political scientist Thomas R. Hensley argues that continuity not change characterized the Rehnquist Court era. But without a doubt, the Rehnquist Court was frequently a war zone.Fourteen justices served during the Rehnquist era, which began in 1986... more...

The Vinson Court summons students and legal professionals to understand the impact and tensions of Fred Vinson's term as Chief Justice from 1946–1953. Court scholar Michal R. Belknap explores McCarthyism, the Cold War, racial segregation, and capital punishment from the Supreme Court's view. These controversies shaped the most important decision on presidential powers, restrictions on political expression, and a nasty conflict over the... more...

A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights. A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever. A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone before had... more...

This groundbreaking book analyzes the decisions made by the United States circuit courts over the past half century. These courts have a profound impact on the law―they issue many more decisions in many more areas of law than the Supreme Court. Cross demonstrates that while the courts' judges are influenced by ideology and by the appointing president, legal requirements exercise a much stronger influence on their decisions. He also shows that these... more...

"The Justice of Mercy is exhilarating reading. Teeming with intelligence and insight, this study immediately establishes itself as the unequaled philosophical and legal exploration of mercy. But Linda Meyer's book reaches beyond mercy to offer reconceptualizations of justice and punishment themselves. Meyer's ambition is to rethink the failed retributivist paradigm of criminal justice and to replace it with an ideal of merciful... more...

A revelatory account of the misdemeanor machine that unjustly brands millions of Americans as criminals Punishment Without Crime offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Based on extensive original research, legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a massive petty offense... more...

Written from an ethnographic perspective, this book investigates the socio-legal aspects of Islamic jurisprudence in Gaza-Palestine. It examines the way judges, lawyers and litigants operate with respect to the law and with each other, particularly given their different positions in the power structure within the court and within society at large. The book aims at elucidating ambivalences in the codified statutes that allow the actors... more...

Including a comprehensive analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court, this study examines the American legal system. It extensively examines lower courts as well, providing separate chapters on state courts, the U.S. District Courts, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Analyzing these courts from a legal/extralegal framework, the book draws different conclusions about the relative influence of each based on institutional structures and empirical evidence. Finally,... more...

A selection of the landmark Supreme Court decisions that have shaped American society Penguin presents a series of six portable, accessible, and—above all—essential reads from American political history, selected by leading scholars. Series editor Richard Beeman, author of The Penguin Guide to the U.S. Constitution, draws together the great texts of American civic life, including the founding documents, pivotal historical speeches, and important... more...

Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year A revelatory look at the Warren Burger Supreme Court finds that it was not moderate or transitional, but conservative—and it shaped today’s constitutional landscape. It is an “important book…a powerful corrective to the standard narrative of the Burger Court” (The New York Times Book Review). When Richard Nixon campaigned for the presidency in 1968 he promised to change the Supreme Court.... more...