Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> American Government - Judicial Branch

Most Americans think that judges should be, and are, generalists who decide a wide array of cases. Nonetheless, we now have specialized courts in many key policy areas. Specializing the Courts provides the first comprehensive analysis of this growing trend toward specialization in the federal and state court systems.

Lawrence Baum incisively explores the scope, causes, and consequences of judicial specialization in four areas that include most specialized courts: foreign policy and national security, criminal law, economic issues involving the government, and economic issues in...

How do Supreme Court justices decide their cases? Do they follow their policy preferences? Or are they constrained by the law and by other political actors? The Constrained Court combines new theoretical insights and extensive data analysis to show that law and politics together shape the behavior of justices on the Supreme Court.

Michael Bailey and Forrest Maltzman show how two types of constraints have influenced the decision making of the modern Court. First, Bailey and Maltzman document that important legal doctrines, such as respect for precedents, have influenced...

"Sonia Sotomayor: A Biography" is an overview of Justice Sotomayor's life and career from her childhood to her ascent to the Supreme Court. It is also an early assessment of her performance on the court, her relationships with her colleagues, and the particular influence she is likely to exert on future decisions.

Sharing an inspirational, rags-to-riches story, the book begins with Sotomayor's childhood in an East Bronx housing project. It follows her to Princeton, where she was a student activist, and to Yale Law School. Equally important to an understanding of this influential judge...

"Our Founders would not recognize today's America. Christianity is under attack as never before. My career as a Baptist minister and as chaplain of the Texas House of Representatives has, in a sense, taken me to both sides of Jefferson's metaphorical 'wall of separation.' Mr. Armstrong puts it a bit differently: 'There should be at least a short fence of separation between Caesar and God. If the divider falls, government will strong-arm religion.' Instead of relying on sound bites, headlines, and e-mails, he takes you straight to the Supreme Court opinions that have shaped the religion...

"Our Founders would not recognize today's America. Christianity is under attack as never before. My career as a Baptist minister and as chaplain of the Texas House of Representatives has, in a sense, taken me to both sides of Jefferson's metaphorical 'wall of separation.' Mr. Armstrong puts it a bit differently: 'There should be at least a short fence of separation between Caesar and God. If the divider falls, government will strong-arm religion.' Instead of relying on sound bites, headlines, and e-mails, he takes you straight to the Supreme Court opinions that have shaped the religion...

Bertha Wilson's appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1982 capped off a career of firsts. Wilson had been the first woman lawyer and partner at a prominent Toronto law firm and the first woman appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Her career and passing in 2007 have provoked reflection on her contributions to Canadian society and the question, what difference do women judges make? Justice Bertha Wilson examines Wilson's career through three distinct frames ? foundations, controversy, and reflections ? and a wide range of feminist perspectives. Taken together, these...

As a young lawyer practicing in Arizona, far from the political center of the country, William Hubbs Rehnquist's iconoclasm made him a darling of Goldwater Republicans. He was brash and articulate. Although he was unquestionably ambitious and extraordinarily self-confident, his journey to Washington required a mixture of good-old-boy connections and rank good fortune. An outsider and often lone dissenter on his arrival, Rehnquist outlasted the liberal vestiges of the Warren Court and the collegiate conservatism of the Burger Court, until in 1986 he became the most overtly political...