Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court by Cass R. Sunstein ISBN: 0-674-00579-1 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Response to "Sad....Brilliant Mind."
Comment: Review titled "Sad...Brilliant Mind" is misguided and his criticism is misplaced. His erudiction is impressive (lots of foreign, erudite words to be sure) but his analysis confuses several critical positions. Read "One Case at a Time" and you will gain a better idea of how fundamentally flawed our democratic process actually is and the role of the judiciary as a buffer against a tyranny by the majority. To understand the Supreme Court since 1954, one must see the historical circumstances of that era.
Rating: 1
Summary: Sad Use of a Brilliant Mind
Comment: Liberalism eats its intellectuals, cannibalizing their principles for the sake of political expediency.
Professor Sunstein is a case in point. Last year, to defend President Clinton against impeachment, he argued that a President can't be impeached for any crime not related to his office. When pressed, he allowed that it would be a borderline case if the President murdered someone, but no lesser crime would merit impeachment. Professor Sunstein is not a stupid man, but this is a stupid argument. Since, like most legal experts, Mr. Sunstein also believes that a President cannot be prosecuted, Mr. Sunstein is arguing that if a President habitually raped women or blew up abortion clinics and bragged about his exploits in his State of the Union Address, the country would be powerless to take any action against him. I doubt that a man of Mr. Sunstein's intelligence believed that even as he spoke it, but nevertheless, he lent his prestige to a shabby argument for the political demands of the moment.
There is something of the same thing going on in this book. This time, there is nothing objectionable in his thesis. Courts should not strip issues away from the democratic process. Indeed, if it weren't for Roe v. Wade (which Sunstein properly condemns), state legislatures would have legalized abortion anyway, but the pro-life forces would not be picketing clinics, let alone blowing them up. Vox populi, vox dei has a powerful ability to make people to accept what they oppose. Courts lack that power.
Where Sunstein bows to political pressure is in his choice of examples of judicial overreach. For every example of Warren Court "maximalism" which he rightly condemns, he throws in a right-wing example, Justices Scalia and Thomas being particular targets. But he really is comparing apples and oranges. Justice Scalia's position on punitive damages, for instance, which has a long tradition in America despite current abuses, is just not on a par with the Warren Court's Baker v. Carr, which overturned 200 years of electoral practice (and, if the court had been logically consistent, would have overturned the method of electing U.S. Senators, thus making the Constitution unconstitutional). Yet Sunstein equates the two. If conservative judges were really the judicial activists Sunstein pretends them to be, they would be arguing that the fetus is a human being protected by the Constitution. They do not do that, arguing at their most extreme that it is a matter for the legislatures to decide.
Because liberalism is aimless at the moment, it behooves liberals to applaud the narrow focus of the Court. It also behooves them to use a tu quoque argument to attack the opposition. Sunstein fills the bill.
This book is a highly original and highly principled work. Unfortunately, the parts that are original are not principled and the parts that principled are not original.
Rating: 5
Summary: Succinct analysis of how the Supreme Court decides cases
Comment: This is an essential text for anyone interested in legal reasoning and legal process. I would go so far as to say it will be on the same bookshelf as Oliver Wendall Holmes and other great jurisprudential commentators. It should also be required reading for every law student, and their professors as well. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, gives clear, diagramatic analyses of the principles upon which the Supreme Court (and other courts and judges) base their decisions.
That having been said, this is neither a quick nor superficial read. It assumes the reader's familiarity with legal process and decisionmaking, and of the salient issues before the courts. Nevertheless, the overall result is deeply satisfying as a method of analysis. Anyone interested in law should buy the book, and read it, not once but several times.
 |
Title: Democracy and Distrust by John Hart Ely ISBN: 0674196376 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: August, 1981 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
 |
Title: On Reading the Constitution by Michael C. Dorf, Laurence H. Tribe ISBN: 0674636260 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: A Matter of Interpretation by Antonin Scalia, Amy Gutmann ISBN: 0691004005 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 27 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics by Alexander M. Bickel ISBN: 0300032994 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 1986 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
 |
Title: Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment by Raoul Berger, Forrest McDonald ISBN: 0865971447 Publisher: Liberty Fund, Inc. Pub. Date: June, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
