Download or read book Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of Hon Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 1410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings in the U S Senate written by Dion Farganis and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2014-03-24 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How much do Supreme Court nominees reveal at their confirmation hearings, and how do their answers affect senators' votes?
Download or read book Comparative Constitutional History written by Francesco Biagi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-12-05 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitutions are a product of history, but what is the role of history in interpreting and applying constitutional provisions? This volume addresses that question from a comparative perspective, examining different uses of history by courts in constitutional adjudication.
Download or read book Clearinghouse Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Engagement written by Sasha Issenberg and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 929 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • The riveting story of the conflict over same-sex marriage in the United States—the most significant civil rights breakthrough of the new millennium "Full of intimate details, battling personalities, heated court cases, public persuasion.” —John Williams, The New York Times On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional, making same-sex unions legal across the United States. But the road to that momentous decision was much longer than many know. In this definitive account, Sasha Issenberg vividly guides us through same-sex marriage’s unexpected path from the unimaginable to the inevitable. It is a story that begins in Hawaii in 1990, when a rivalry among local activists triggered a sequence of events that forced the state to justify excluding gay couples from marriage. In the White House, one president signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which elevated the matter to a national issue, and his successor tried to write it into the Constitution. Over twenty-five years, the debate played out across the country, from the first legal same-sex weddings in Massachusetts to the epic face-off over California’s Proposition 8 and, finally, to the landmark Supreme Court decisions of United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges. From churches to hedge funds, no corner of American life went untouched. This richly detailed narrative follows the coast-to-coast conflict through courtrooms and war rooms, bedrooms and boardrooms, to shed light on every aspect of a political and legal controversy that divided Americans like no other. Following a cast of characters that includes those who sought their own right to wed, those who fought to protect the traditional definition of marriage, and those who changed their minds about it, The Engagement is certain to become a seminal book on the modern culture wars.
Download or read book The Judge written by Ronald K.L. Collins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no book of political strategy more canonical than Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, but few ethicists would advise policymakers to treat it as a bible. The lofty ideals of the law, especially, seem distant from the values that the word "Machiavellian" connotes, and judges are supposed to work above the realm of politics. In The Judge, however, Ronald Collins and David Skover argue that Machiavelli can indeed speak to judges, and model their book after The Prince. As it turns out, the number of people who think that judges in the U.S. are apolitical has been shrinking for decades. Both liberals and conservatives routinely criticize their ideological opponents on the bench for acting politically. Some authorities even posit the impossibility of apolitical judges, and indeed, in many states, judicial elections are partisan. Others advocate appointing judges who are committed to being dispassionate referees adhering to the letter of the law. However, most legal experts, regardless of their leanings, seem to agree that despite widespread popular support for the ideal of the apolitical judge, this ideal is mere fantasy. This debate about judges and politics has been a perennial in American history, but it intensified in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration sought to place originalists in the Supreme Court. It has not let up since. Ronald Collins and David Skover argue that the debate has become both stale and circular, and instead tackle the issue in a boldly imaginative way. In The Judge, they ask us to assume that judges are political, and that they need advice on how to be effective political actors. Their twenty-six chapters track the structure of The Prince, and each provides pointers to judges on how to cleverly and subtly advance their political goals. In this Machiavellian vision, law is inseparable from realpolitik. However, the authors' point isn't to advocate for this coldly realistic vision of judging. Their ultimate goal is identify both legal realists and originalists as what they are: explicitly political (though on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum). Taking its cues from Machiavelli, The Judge describes what judges actually do, not what they ought to do.
Download or read book Breaking In The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice written by Joan Biskupic and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The untold story of Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Supreme Court Judge, from a leading judicial biographer"--
Download or read book Harvard Law Review Volume 125 Number 2 December 2011 written by Harvard Law Review and published by Quid Pro Books. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Harvard Law Review is offered in a digital edition, featuring active and nested Table of Contents, linked footnotes and active cross-references, legible tables, and proper ebook formatting. This current issue of the Review is December 2011, the second issue of academic year 2011-2012 (Volume 125). Articles in this issue are written by such recognized scholars as Jamal Greene (writing on notorious or anti-canonical Supreme Court cases such as Plessy and Lochner), Orin Kerr (on Fourth Amendment theory), and Michael Klarman (reviewing a new book on the Constitutional Convention). Student contributions feature Notes on the John Dewey model of democracy and administrative agencies, and on breaching international trade law. Case Notes discuss recent decisions on such topics as civil procedure, tort law, patent law, constitutional law (on transgender prisoners and on firing ranges), stem cell research funding, and corporate immunity. Aside from serving as an important academic forum for legal scholarship, the Review has two other goals. First, the journal is designed to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students of the law. Second, it provides opportunities for Review members to develop their own editing and writing skills. Accordingly, each issue contains pieces by student editors as well as outside authors. The Review generally publishes articles by professors, judges, and practitioners and solicits reviews of important recent books from recognized experts. Most student writing takes the form of Notes, Recent Cases, Recent Legislation, and Book Notes.
Download or read book Unfair written by Adam Benforado and published by Crown. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Unfair succinctly and persuasively recounts cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system, illustrating many with case studies.”—The Boston Globe A child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer. The evidence is all around us: Our system of justice is fundamentally broken. But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us. This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning. Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law.
Download or read book The Company They Keep written by Neal Devins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are Supreme Court justices swayed by the political environment that surrounds them? Most people think "yes," and they point to the influence of the general public and the other branches of government on the Court. It is not that simple, however. As the eminent law and politics scholars Neal Devins and Lawrence Baum show in The Company They Keep, justices today are reacting far more to subtle social forces in their own elite legal world than to pressure from the other branches of government or mass public opinion. In particular, the authors draw from social psychology research to show why Justices are apt to follow the lead of the elite social networks that they are a part of. The evidence is strong: Justices take cues primarily from the people who are closest to them and whose approval they care most about: political, social, and professional elites. In an era of strong partisan polarization, elite social networks are largely bifurcated by partisan and ideological loyalties, and the Justices reflect that division. The result is a Court in which the Justices' ideological stances reflect the dominant views in the appointing president's party. Justices such as Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg live largely in a milieu populated by like-minded elites. Today's partisanship on the Court also stems from the emergence of conservative legal networks such as the Federalist Society, that reinforce the conservative leanings of Republican appointees. For the Warren and Burger Courts, elite social networks were dominated by liberal elites and not divided by political party or ideology. A fascinating examination of the factors that shape decision-making, The Company They Keep will reshape our understanding of how political polarization occurs on the contemporary Supreme Court.
Download or read book Managing Diabetes written by Jeffrey A. Bennett and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical study of diabetes in the popular imagination Over twenty-nine million people in the United States, more than nine percent of the population, have some form of diabetes. In Managing Diabetes, Jeffrey A. Bennett focuses on how the disease is imagined in public culture. Bennett argues that popular anecdotes, media representation, and communal myths are as meaningful as medical and scientific understandings of the disease. In focusing on the public character of the disease, Bennett looks at health campaigns and promotions as well as the debate over public figures like Sonia Sotomayor and her management of type 1 diabetes. Bennett examines the confusing and contradictory public depictions of diabetes to demonstrate how management of the disease is not only clinical but also cultural. Bennett also has type 1 diabetes and speaks from personal experience about the many misunderstandings and myths that are alive in the popular imagination. Ultimately, Managing Diabetes offers a fresh take on how disease is understood in contemporary society and the ways that stigma, fatalism, and health can intersect to shape diabetes’s public character. This disease has dire health implications, and rates keep rising. Bennett argues that until it is better understood it cannot be better treated.
Download or read book Judicial Politics in Polarized Times written by Thomas M. Keck and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-12-04 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “important and timely discussion of judicial politics” sheds light on America’s courts as they rule on abortion, gay rights, gun rights, and more (Choice). When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, some saw the decision as a textbook example of neutral judicial decision making, noting that a Republican Chief Justice joined the Court’s Democratic appointees in their vote. Others decried the decision as an example of partisan justice citing a Republican bloc of Court appointees who voted to strike the statute down. Still others argued that the ACA’s fate ultimately hinged not on the Court but on the outcome of the 2012 election. These interpretations reflect larger shifts in judicial politics that have emerged in today’s increasingly polarized America. Are judges neutral legal umpires, unaccountable partisan activists, or political actors whose decisions conform to—rather than challenge—the democratic will? Drawing on a sweeping survey of hot-button litigation—on abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, and gun rights—across the Clinton, Bush, and Obama eras, Thomas M. Keck argues that, while each of these perspectives has merit, each is also misleading. Despite judges’ claims, actual legal decisions are not the politically neutral products of disembodied legal texts. But neither are judges “tyrants in robes,” undermining democratic values by imposing their own preferences. Just as often, judges and the public seem to be pushing in the same direction. As for the argument that the courts are powerless institutions, Keck shows that their decisions have profound political effects. And, while advocates on both the left and right use litigation to achieve their ends, neither side has consistently won. Ultimately, Keck argues, judges respond not simply as umpires, activists, or political actors, but in light of distinctive judicial values and practices.
Download or read book Legislative and Executive Calendar written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Justice Scalia written by Brian G. Slocum and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-03-06 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Justice Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) was the single most important figure in the emergence of the “new originalist” interpretation of the US Constitution, which sought to anchor the court’s interpretation of the Constitution to the ordinary meaning of the words at the time of drafting. For Scalia, the meaning of constitutional provisions and statutes was rigidly fixed by their original meanings with little concern for extratextual considerations. While some lauded his uncompromising principles, others argued that such a rigid view of the Constitution both denies and attempts to limit the discretion of judges in ways that damage and distort our system of law. In this edited collection, leading scholars from law, political science, philosophy, rhetoric, and linguistics look at the ways Scalia framed and stated his arguments. Focusing on rhetorical strategies rather than the logic or validity of Scalia’s legal arguments, the contributors collectively reveal that Scalia enacted his rigidly conservative vision of the law through his rhetorical framing.
Download or read book Passions and Emotions written by James E. Fleming and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the history of moral, political, and legal philosophy, many have portrayed passions and emotions as being opposed to reason and good judgment. At the same time, others have defended passions and emotions as tempering reason and enriching judgment, and there is mounting empirical evidence linking emotions to moral judgment. In Passions and Emotions, a group of prominent scholars in philosophy, political science, and law explore three clusters of issues: “Passion & Impartiality: Passions & Emotions in Moral Judgment”; “Passion & Motivation: Passions & Emotions in Democratic Politics”; and “Passion & Dispassion: Passions & Emotions in Legal Interpretation.” This timely, interdisciplinary volume examines many of the theoretical and practical legal, political, and moral issues raised by such questions.
Download or read book The Emotional Dynamics of Law and Legal Discourse written by Heather Conway and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his seminal work, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman suggests that the common view of human intelligence is far too narrow and that emotions play a much greater role in thought, decision-making and individual success than is commonly acknowledged. The importance of emotion to human experience cannot be denied, yet the relationship between law and emotion is one that has largely been ignored until recent years. However, the last two decades have seen a rapidly expanding interest among scholars of all disciplines into the way in which law and the emotions interact, including the law's response to emotion and the extent to which emotions pervade the practice of the law. In The Emotional Dynamics of Law and Legal Discourse a group of leading scholars from both sides of the Atlantic explore these issues across key areas of private law, public law, criminal justice and dispute resolution, illustrating how emotion infuses all areas of legal thought. The collection argues for a more positive view of the role of emotion in the context of legal discourse and demonstrates ways in which the law could, in the words of Goleman, become more emotionally intelligent.
Download or read book Legal Realism and American Law written by Justin Zaremby and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-12-05 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first part of the 20th century, a group of law scholars offered engaging, and occasionally disconcerting, views on the role of judges and the relationship between law and politics in the United States. These legal realists borrowed methods from the social sciences to carefully study the law as experienced by lawyers, judges, and average citizens and promoted a progressive vision for American law and society. Legal realism investigated the nature of legal reasoning, the purpose of law, and the role of judges. The movement asked questions which reshaped the study of jurisprudence and continue to drive lively debates about the law and politics in classrooms, courtrooms, and even the halls of Congress. This thorough analysis provides an introduction to the ideas, context, and leading personalities of legal realism. It helps situate an important movement in legal theory in the context of American politics and political thought and will be of great interest to students of judicial politics, American constitutional development, and political theory.