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Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?
Demico Boothe Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 1425713971 |
Customer Reviews:
(RAW Rating: 4.5) - What is happening to black men?.......2007-08-04
Why Are So Many Black Men In Prison? A Comprehensive Account Of How And Why The Prison Industry Has Become A Predatory Entity In.......2007-06-09
A Must Read.......2007-05-25
Why are so many Black Men in Prison?.......2007-05-13
Why are so many blacks in prison?.......2007-05-12
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The Supreme Court of the United States: A Student Companion (Oxford Student Companions to American Government)
John J. Patrick Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0195150082 |
Book Description
The Supreme Court of the United States is an illustrated A-to-Z guide that covers virtually all aspects of the U.S. Supreme Court, including biographical articles on all of the Justices, summaries and analysis of key decisions of the Court, articles on legal terms and statutes associated with
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The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800: Volume 8 (Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States)
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items: ASIN: 0231139764 |
Book Description
The eight volumes of The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789 1800 gather together documents from the National Archives and dozens of additional repositories, resulting in a rich portrait of the first decade of the Court. It is an invaluable series for any scholar interested in the development of the Supreme Court as an institution and in the cases that came before the Court during its infancy.
The final volume of The Documentary History concerns cases heard between 1798 and 1800. In these years, the United States was virtually at war with France, and issues arising from that conflict came before the Court. For example, in Baas v. Tingey, the Court ruled that although Congress had not declared war, France should still be considered an "enemy." But the Court's docket also featured cases that arose naturally in the burgeoning nation. Several involved disputes over land-most notably a controversy centering on a substantial strip of territory running along the southern border of New York. The Court heard cases concerning bills of exchange, bankruptcy, and violations of trade laws and resolved a number of procedural issues. In Bingham v. Cabot II, the justices ruled that the citizenship of the parties had to be explicitly stated in the pleadings for the federal courts to assume jurisdiction on the basis of diversity.
During this period, The Supreme Court continued to exercise the authority of judicial review, though it did not strike down a statute. In both Calder v. Bull and Cooper v. Telfair, however, it did examine the constitutionality of state laws. Documents of particular interest in this volume are the notes of Justice William Paterson and William Tilghman, a member of the Supreme Court bar, but all of the cases are accompanied by engaging narratives that guide the reader through the facts and the intricacies of the judicial process.
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The Supreme Court (True Books)
Patricia Ryon Quiri , and Patricia Ryon Quiri Manufacturer: Children's Press (CT) ProductGroup: Book Binding: Library Binding Similar Items:
ASIN: 0516206796 |
Customer Reviews:
Great nonfiction book.......2005-10-05
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Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas 1991-2006: A Conservative's Perspective
Henry Mark Holzer Manufacturer: McFarland & Company ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0786430036 Release Date: 2007-01-24 |
Product Description
In his fifteen years as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has written nearly 350 opinions. Thousands of Thomas's eloquent and thoughtful words are thus available for Americans to examine. Yet much of the public still bases its opinion of Thomas on the words of the American media, going as far back as the bruising confirmation battle of 1991. Widespread, uncritical acceptance of glib assumptions has greatly distorted the record and even the character of this formidable justice. This book offers readers the opportunity to consider the real Clarence Thomas-the formidable intellectual and defender of the Constitution, amply represented by his writings. It analyzes his most important majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions from 1991 through 2006. The author argues that Thomas's opinions reveal a consistent adherence to the principles of federalism, separation of powers, limited judicial review, and regard for individual rights as contemplated by the framers of the Constitution. An appendix contains a list of every opinion Thomas has written and notes whether it was a majority, concurring, or dissenting opinion.
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Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians V. the Supreme Court
Joyce Murdoch , and Deb Price Manufacturer: Basic Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 046501514X Release Date: 2002-05-07 |
Amazon.com
If this meticulously documented and compellingly narrated chronicle of the gay-related cases before the nation's highest court over the past fifty-odd years were even half as good as it is--or, ideally, half as long--it would still be terrific. Lending heft to the notion that the couple that investigates together domesticates together, veteran D.C. journalists Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price, life partners since 1985, have composed the gay bookend to Bob Woodward's The Brethren--with all the epic sweep, painstaking research and intimate storytelling of such nonfiction classics as And the Band Played On and Common Ground. Two cases here provide the book's anchors: 1986's Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld Georgia's law against homosexual sodomy and provided an astonishingly hostile climax to two decades of high-court homophobia, and 1992's ruling that found unconstitutional Colorado's ban on equal protection of any sort for gays--the Court's greatest and most respectful affirmation of gay rights, if not much of a promise that the court would rule with equal sensitivity on future gay-related cases.Beyond those two seminal rulings, Murdoch and Price cover what seems like, and may well be, every gay-oriented case to so much as petition the Court since the Eisenhower years. That comprehensiveness can become a little exhausting, amounting as it does largely to a dispiriting archive of the myriad ways the Court has found of blithely dismissing or even scoffing at the basic rights of gay Americans. Drawing on everything from scrawled notes in the justices' personal archives to in-depth interviews with the justices' former clerks, Murdoch and Price provide a fascinating window into how each justice's individual experience and temperament--not to mention the intricate, ever shifting power plays among them--influenced his or her decisions. The most heart-wrenching, haunting portrait is of Justice Lewis Powell, by the 1980s an frail, aging Southern gentleman who had an uncanny knack for hiring gay clerks yet claimed he'd never met a homosexual. He made a valiant but failed effort to understand gays, and ultimately changed his mind at the last minute to cast the damning, deciding vote in Bowers--an about-face he fretted over up until his death. Rehnquist and Scalia clearly emerge here as the homophobic bullies, with Thomas as their silent yes man, O'Connor as spinelessly concerned with voting in the majority, and Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter and sometimes Kennedy as the usual pro-gay "count-on" votes. Undeniably, Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun (who wrote Bowers's stirring dissent) are portrayed as the heroes on the bench.
But the real heroes here are in the pageant of gay men and lesbians who took their demands for justice to the nation's highest court, many in an era when it was considered absurd to think they had any rights at all in an America that saw them as child molesters, psychopaths, or--at best--pitifully "afflicted with homosexuality." Very few of them were vindicated, and many more lost nearly everything--their jobs, homes, income, privacy, reputation, and sometimes children--for the fight they waged. Their diversely fascinating stories are told here, in a volume whose ultimate triumph is the emotional punch it packs. I kept thinking of Dorothy and her friends petitioning the Wizard: Their firm belief that he would do right by them, their fear and awe before his mysterious majesty, their rage and grief when he welshed on his promise, and, finally, their astonishment to learn that the great and mighty Oz, who had the last say in the highest tribunal in the land, was really just a man, with the same capacity for both ignorance and enlightenment as the rest of us. --Timothy Murphy
Book Description
Since 1958, twenty-five men and two women have forced the Supreme Court to consider whether the Constitution's promises of equal protection apply to gay Americans. Here Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price reveal how the nation's highest court has reacted to these cases--from the surprising 1958 victory of a tiny homosexual magazine to the 2000 defeat of a gay Eagle Scout. A triumph of investigative reporting, Courting Justice gives us an inspiring new perspective on the struggle for civil rights in America.Customer Reviews:
First rate and well worth your time.......2006-07-28
Fascinating and comprehensive.......2004-01-10
The book covers all the major cases that those familiar with gay rights law are familiar with and many others you have probably never heard of. The chapter on the Bowers v. Hardwick case is terrific. The authors tracked down a semi-closeted (at the time) gay clerk from Justice Powell's chambers. Justice Powell cornered this young man and asked him a series of questions about gays that make it clear the man had not the simplest idea of what he was dealing with. Ultimately Powell provided the deciding vote with the majority (in favor of upholding sodomy laws) and late in life stated that it was his major regret.
This is a fascinating read and I recommend it to anyone interested in gay rights, gay history, and the Supreme Court.
In search of "Equal Justice Under Law".......2002-06-28
Through interviews with clerks, excerpts from transcripts and audiotapes of oral arguments, justices' notes of meetings and rough drafts of decisions, and the journalist authors' clear explanations of legal jargon and procedure, we watch the court at work. The mysterious, incontrovertable third arm of our government is revealed to be simply nine men and women, as subject to prejudice as the rest of us. But we also see a few justices wrestle with their prejudices and write forceful dissents and eventually a majority opinion (Romer v. Evans) that wrapped queer Americans in the constitutional guarantee of Equal Protection.
Because Murdoch and Price's book covers such a broad timespan, they're able to dissect the court's (often achingly) slow evolution from viewing gays as perverted criminals to citizens.
If you want to understand the key legal questions facing gay, lesbian, transgender, and bi-affectional Americans, and their search for equal justice in a country that promises so much, I would highly recommend this book. But don't read it before bedtime; Scalia's a pretty scary boogyman.
excellent research, but not totally law-oriented.......2002-06-11
However, as someone whose main literary diet consists of academic literature and judicial opinions, I have noticed some flaws. First, there are more than a few typographical errors, which I assume will be corrected when the book comes out in paperback. More importantly, since the authors aren't lawyers, they miss the implications of the legal language the Court uses. The authors enclose terms of art like strict scrutiny and Court language like "dismissed as improvidently granted" in quotation marks as if to emphasize the peculiarity of the Court's language. Also, the authors' (understandable) bias is sometimes distracting, taking away from an otherwise even-handed assessment of the Court's motives.
All in all, this book is a worthwhile read (as my fellow reviewers have noticed).
Putting it all in perspective.......2002-02-07
But Murdock and Price and have done far more than Woodward, perhaps because their focus was more precise. They offer a compelling thesis about the Court's evolving disposition toward lesbians and gay men, one that, in some respects, mirrors the disposition of mainstream American society toward the same community. The book shows the Court as what it undoubtedly really is: a collection of individual men and women who come to work in the morning with predefined notions and biases about lesbians and gay men. The book credibly describes an evolving Court that, through persistent confrontation and education, has grown in its understanding of the gay community and objectivity toward gay people.
Beyond that, the book ends up simultaneously offering a grand historical narrative of the modern gay rights movement. Just about every gay rights controversy has ended up knocking on the doors of the Supreme Court at one time or another, and telling the stories of those cases and the people involved in them necessarily educates readers about the history of the gay rights movement - and in langauge that is always wonderfully written and at times deeply moving. This book demonstrates exactly why journalists are often so much better at writing accessible and fulfilling social-legal history than legal academics are.
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Laboratory of Justice: The Supreme Court's 200-Year Struggle to Integrate Science and the Law
David L. Faigman Manufacturer: Owl Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0805078452 Release Date: 2005-04-14 |
Book Description
uppose that scientists identify a gene sequence that predicts the likelihood that a person will commit a serious crime in the future. Laws are passed making genetic tests mandatory, and anyone displaying the genes is sent to a treatment facility. Would the laws be constitutional? In this illuminating history, legal scholar David L. Faigman wrestles with these moral and political conundrums, revealing the tension between science and the law. The Supreme Court works by precedent, while science works through constant innovation. In the nineteenth century, eugenics and phrenology helped decide the 'race question' in the famous Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson cases; Roe v. Wade set a standard for the viability of a fetus that, just thirty years later, could become obsolete with modern medicine. And how does the Fourth Amendment apply in a world filled with high-tech surveillance devices? To ensure our liberties, Faigman argues, the Court must embrace science rather than resist it, turning to the lab as well as to precedent.Customer Reviews:
A Fascinating View of the Supreme Court.......2005-01-23
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Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1956-1961
Mark V. Tushnet Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0195104684 |
Book Description
From the 1930s to the early 1960s civil rights law was made primarily through constitutional litigation. Before Rosa Parks could ignite a Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Supreme Court had to strike down the Alabama law which made segregated bus service required by law; before Martin Luther King could march on Selma to register voters, the Supreme Court had to find unconstitutional the Southern Democratic Party's exclusion of African-Americans; and before the March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Supreme Court had to strike down the laws allowing for the segregation of public graduate schools, colleges, high schools, and grade schools. Making Civil Rights Law provides a chronological narrative history of the legal struggle, led by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, that preceded the political battles for civil rights. Drawing on interviews with Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP lawyers, as well as new information about the private deliberations of the Supreme Court, Tushnet tells the dramatic story of how the NAACP Legal Defense Fund led the Court to use the Constitution as an instrument of liberty and justice for all African-Americans. He also offers new insights into how the justices argued among themselves about the historic changes they were to make in American society. Making Civil Rights Law provides an overall picture of the forces involved in civil rights litigation, bringing clarity to the legal reasoning that animated this "Constitutional revolution", and showing how the slow development of doctrine and precedent reflected the overall legal strategy of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP.Customer Reviews:
Very informative but dry.......1999-11-20
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Our Supreme Court: A History with 14 Activities (For Kids series)
Richard Panchyk Manufacturer: Chicago Review Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 1556526075 |
Book Description
This lively and comprehensive activity book teaches young readers everything they need to know about the nation's highest court. Organized around keystones of the Constitution—including free speech, freedom of religion, civil rights, criminal justice, and property rights—the book juxtaposes historical cases with similar current cases. Presented with opinions from both sides of the court cases, readers can make up their own minds on where they stand on the important issues that have evolved in the Court over the past 200 years. Interviews with prominent politicians, high-court lawyers, and those involved with landmark decisions—including Ralph Nader, Rudolph Giuliani, Mario Cuomo, and Arlen Specter—show the personal impact and far-reaching consequences of the decisions. Fourteen engaging classroom-oriented activities involving violations of civil rights, exercises of free speech, and selecting a classroom Supreme Court bring the issues and cases to life. The first 15 amendments to the Constitution and a glossary of legal terms are also included.
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Television News and the Supreme Court: All the News that's Fit to Air?
Elliot E. Slotnick , and Jennifer A. Segal Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0521576164 |
Book Description
This book offers the most in-depth analysis of journalistic attention to the Supreme Court (primarily television) currently available. It combines penetrating and remarkably frank interviews with prominent Supreme Court journalists with extensive examination of videotapes of network television news coverage of the Court, to provide a comprehensive picture of how numerous constraints faced by reporters covering the Court (imposed by the nature of the television news industry and the Court itself) contribute to the pattern of infrequent, brief, and in too many instances, incorrect and misleading stories that are aired about the Court. The implications of this situation for the American public are explored.Books:
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