A Court Divided

A Court Divided
Author: Mark V. Tushnet
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2005
Genre: Constitutional law
ISBN: 9780393058680

In this authoritative reckoning with the eighteen-year record of the Rehnquist Court, Georgetown law professor Mark Tushnet reveals how the decisions of nine deeply divided justices have left the future of the Court; and the nation; hanging in the balance. Many have assumed that the chasm on the Court has been between its liberals and its conservatives. In reality, the division was between those in tune with the modern post-Reagan Republican Party and those who, though considered to be in the Court's center, represent an older Republican tradition. As a result, the Court has modestly promoted the agenda of today's economic conservatives, but has regularly defeated the agenda of social issues conservatives; while paving the way for more radically conservative path in the future.

A Court Divided

A Court Divided
Author: Mark V. Tushnet
Publisher:
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2005
Genre: Constitutional law
ISBN:

A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court and the Future of Constitutional Law

A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court and the Future of Constitutional Law
Author: Mark Tushnet
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2005-11-17
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0393077519

"An incisive consideration of the Supremes, offering erudite yet accessible clues to legal thinking on the most important level."--Kirkus Reviews In this authoritative reckoning with the eighteen-year record of the Rehnquist Court, Georgetown law professor Mark Tushnet reveals how the decisions of nine deeply divided justices have left the future of the Court; and the nation; hanging in the balance. Many have assumed that the chasm on the Court has been between its liberals and its conservatives. In reality, the division was between those in tune with the modern post-Reagan Republican Party and those who, though considered to be in the Court's center, represent an older Republican tradition. As a result, the Court has modestly promoted the agenda of today's economic conservatives, but has regularly defeated the agenda of social issues conservatives; while paving the way for more radically conservative path in the future.

The Rehnquist Legacy

The Rehnquist Legacy
Author: Craig Bradley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2006
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521859196

This book is a legal biography of William Rehnquist of the U. S. Supreme Court.

The Rehnquist Court and Criminal Justice

The Rehnquist Court and Criminal Justice
Author: Christopher E. Smith
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2011-11-16
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0739140825

This book examines the criminal justice decisions of the Rehnquist Court era through analyses of individual justices' contributions to the development of law and policy. The Rehnquist Court era (1986-2005) produced a period of opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court's judicial conservatives to reshape constitutional law concerning rights in the criminal justice process. It was an era in which the Court produced many hotly-debated decisions concerning such issues as capital punishment, search and seizure, police interrogations, and prisoners' rights. The Court's most conservative justice, William H. Rehnquist, ascended to the key leadership position of Chief Justice and he was joined on the Court by two new appointees, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who were equally supportive of both greater authority for police and limited definitions of constitutional rights for suspects, defendants, and criminal offenders. The Rehnquist Court era decisions refined and narrowed many of the rights-expanding decisions of the Warren Court era (1953-1969). However, the Supreme Court did not ultimately eliminate the Warren era's foundational rights concepts in criminal justice, such as the exclusionary rule and Miranda warnings. As the leading liberal voices of the Warren era, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, retired early in the Rehnquist era, the Court experienced continued advocacy of broad conceptions for many rights through the increased assertiveness of Republican appointees Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter as well as the arrival of new Democratic appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. In many important cases, the justices advocating the preservation of constitutional protections could prevail, even on a generally conservative Court, by persuading one or more of President Ronald Reagan's appointees to support a particular right for suspects and defendants. Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, in particular, shaped outcomes within a divided Court as they determined which of the Court’s wings with which they would align in a particular case. The contributors to this volume identify and highlight the unique perspectives and influential decisions of individual justices as the means for understanding the Rehnquist Court’s imprint on criminal justice.

Out of Range

Out of Range
Author: Mark V. Tushnet
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2007-09-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 019981371X

Few constitutional disputes maintain as powerful a grip on the public mind as the battle over the Second Amendment. The National Rifle Association and gun-control groups struggle unceasingly over a piece of the political landscape that no candidate for the presidency--and few for Congress--can afford to ignore. But who's right? Will it ever be possible to settle the argument? In Out of Range, one of the nation's leading legal scholars takes a calm, objective look at this bitter debate. Mark V. Tushnet brings to this book a deep expertise in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the role of the law in American life. He breaks down the different positions on the Second Amendment, showing that it is a mistake to stereotype them. Tushnet's exploration is honest and nuanced; he finds the constitutional arguments finely balanced, which is one reason the debate has raged for so long. Along the way, he examines various experiments in public policy, from both sides, and finds little clear evidence for the practical effectiveness of any approach to gun safety and prosecution. Of course, he notes, most advocates of the right to keep and bear arms agree that it should be subject to reasonable regulation. Ultimately, Tushnet argues, our view of the Second Amendment reflects our sense of ourselves as a people. The answer to the debate will not be found in any holy writ, but in our values and our vision of the nation. This compact, incisive examination offers an honest and thoughtful guide to both sides of the argument, pointing the way to solutions that could calm, if not settle, this bitter dispute.

The New Constitutional Order

The New Constitutional Order
Author: Mark Tushnet
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2009-02-09
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1400825555

In his 1996 State of the Union Address, President Bill Clinton announced that the "age of big government is over." Some Republicans accused him of cynically appropriating their themes, while many Democrats thought he was betraying the principles of the New Deal and the Great Society. Mark Tushnet argues that Clinton was stating an observed fact: the emergence of a new constitutional order in which the aspiration to achieve justice directly through law has been substantially chastened. Tushnet argues that the constitutional arrangements that prevailed in the United States from the 1930s to the 1990s have ended. We are now in a new constitutional order--one characterized by divided government, ideologically organized parties, and subdued constitutional ambition. Contrary to arguments that describe a threatened return to a pre-New Deal constitutional order, however, this book presents evidence that our current regime's animating principle is not the old belief that government cannot solve any problems but rather that government cannot solve any more problems. Tushnet examines the institutional arrangements that support the new constitutional order as well as Supreme Court decisions that reflect it. He also considers recent developments in constitutional scholarship, focusing on the idea of minimalism as appropriate to a regime with chastened ambitions. Tushnet discusses what we know so far about the impact of globalization on domestic constitutional law, particularly in the areas of international human rights and federalism. He concludes with predictions about the type of regulation we can expect from the new order. This is a major new analysis of the constitutional arrangements in the United States. Though it will not be received without controversy, it offers real explanatory and predictive power and provides important insights to both legal theorists and political scientists.

The Partisan

The Partisan
Author: John A. Jenkins
Publisher: Public Affairs
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012-10-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1586488872

Follows Rehnquist's career as a young lawyer in Arizona through his journey to Washington though the Warren and Burger courts to his twenty-year tenure as a Supreme Court Chief Justice who favored government power over individual rights.

Queen's Court

Queen's Court
Author: Nancy Maveety
Publisher:
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

The first book to challenge the conventional wisdom that Sandra Day O'Connor was an influential member of the Rehnquist Court simply by default of her centrist views. Shows that her impact and influence went far beyond the "swing vote," and that it truly was "O'Connor's Court" more so than Rehnquist's.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Bong Hits 4 Jesus
Author: James C. Foster
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2010-10-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1602230900

In January 2002, for the first time, the Olympic Torch Relay visited Alaska on its way to the Winter Games. When the relay runner and accompanying camera cars passed Juneau-Douglas High School, senior Joseph Frederick and several friends unfurled a fourteen-foot banner reading "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS." An in-depth look at student rights within a public high school, this book chronicles the events that followed: Frederick's suspension, the subsequent suit against the school district, and, ultimately, the escalation of a local conflict into a federal case. Brought to life through interviews with the principal figures in the case, Bong Hits 4 Jesus is a gripping tale of the boundaries of free speech in an American high school.