The U.s. Supreme Court : : a Very Short Introduction

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Call Number: 347.732 Gr
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	347.732 Gr	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Origins -- The court at work (1) -- The justices -- The chief justice -- The court at work (2) -- The court and the other branches -- The court and the public -- The court and the world -- U.S. Constitution, Article III -- The Supreme Court's rules -- Chart of the justices.
For 30 years, the author, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist chronicled the activities of the U.S. Supreme Court and its justices as a correspondent for the New York Times. In this introduction, she draws on her knowledge of the court's history and of its written and unwritten rules to show how the Supreme Court really works. She offers an institutional biography of a place and its people, men and women who exercise great power but whose names and faces are unrecognized by many Americans and whose work often appears cloaked in mystery. How do cases get to the Supreme Court? How do the justices go about deciding them? What special role does the chief justice play? What do the law clerks do? How does the court relate to the other branches of government? The author answers these questions by depicting the justices as they confront deep constitutional issues or wrestle with the meaning of confusing federal statutes. Throughout, the author examines many individual Supreme Court cases to illustrate points under discussion, ranging from Marbury v. Madison, the seminal case which established judicial review, to the recent District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), which struck down the District of Columbia's gun-control statute and which was, surprisingly, the first time in its history that the Court issued an authoritative interpretation of the Second Amendment. To add perspective, she also compares the Court to foreign courts, revealing interesting differences. For instance, no other country in the world has chosen to bestow life tenure on its judges.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Should be titled "A Very Short and Highly Politicized Introduction to the Supreme Court" submitted by GJBarnett2 on September 16, 2022, 12:30am The sole virtue of this work is that it is, indeed, very short. Still not worth the time to read. Extremely superficial. In theory, jurists at all levels are required to apply the law without regard to their own political beliefs. This author does not consider that principal to apply to herself. Read, instead, something by Akhil Reed Amar. Anything by him.