[PDF] The Warren Court And The Democratic Constitution eBook

Author : Geoffrey R. Stone
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 10,82 MB
Release : 2020-01-06
Category : LAW
ISBN : 019093820X

GET BOOK

From 1953 to 1969, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren brought about many of the proudest achievements of American constitutional law. The Warren declared racial segregation and laws forbidding interracial marriage to be unconstitutional; it expanded the right of citizens to criticize public officials; it held school prayer unconstitutional; and it ruled that people accused of a crime must be given a lawyer even if they can't afford one. Yet, despite those and other achievements, conservative critics have fiercely accused the justices of the Warren Court of abusing their authority by supposedly imposing their own opinions on the nation. As the eminent legal scholars Geoffrey R. Stone and David A. Strauss demonstrate in Democracy and Equality, the Warren Court's approach to the Constitution was consistent with the most basic values of our Constitution and with the most fundamental responsibilities of our judiciary. Stone and Strauss describe the Warren Court's extraordinary achievements by reviewing its jurisprudence across a range of issues addressing our nation's commitment to the values of democracy and equality. In each chapter, they tell the story of a critical decision, exploring the historical and legal context of each case, the Court's reasoning, and how the justices of the Warren Court fulfilled the Court's most important responsibilities. This powerfully argued evaluation of the Warren Court's legacy, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Warren Court, both celebrates and defends the Warren Court's achievements against almost sixty-five years of unrelenting and unwarranted attacks by conservatives. It demonstrates not only why the Warren Court's approach to constitutional interpretation was correct and admirable, but also why the approach of the Warren Court was far superior to that of the increasingly conservative justices who have dominated the Supreme Court over the past half-century.

Author : Morton J. Horwitz
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 30,10 MB
Release : 2024-10-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781647124755

GET BOOK

A timely history of the profound impact of Earl Warren's Supreme Court on many areas of modern American government and society From 1953 to 1969, Earl Warren served as chief justice of the US Supreme Court. During that time, the Warren Court made a number of historically important decisions involving anti-miscegenation laws (Loving v. Virginia), the right to privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut), and, perhaps most important, racial segregation (Brown v. Board of Education). In The Warren Court and Democratic Constitution, Horwitz highlights the radical shift in traditional jurisprudential ideas that occurred during Earl Warren's tenure as chief justice. He details how Brown v. Board of Education exerted a powerful influence on the agenda of the Warren Court and reshaped almost every subject area in constitutional law. With this decision, the concept of a "living Constitution," the idea that the Constitution ought to develop to accommodate social change, emerged and was institutionalized by the Court. Brown inspired a more active reading of the Equal Protection Clause, and the Court soon applied this expanded notion of "equal protection" to legislative apportionment, recognized the rights of supposed "outsiders" (e.g., undocumented peoples and children born out of wedlock), and initiated a new era of legal attacks on gender discrimination. The Warren Court's jurisprudence is radically opposed to the current Supreme Court's emphasis on originalism, the approach of interpreting the Constitution according to its meaning at the time of writing. Readers interested in an alternative to originalism, as well as Supreme Court history and civil rights, will gain a deeper understanding of the profound impact of the Warren Court on many areas of modern American government and society.

Author : John Denton Carter
Publisher : Pelican Publishing
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 47,93 MB
Release : 1973-01-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781455613861

GET BOOK

The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren attempted to transfer the balance of American political power from elected representatives to a coalition of restless, ambitious power-seekers on the liberal-left, charges author John Denton Carter. The Warren Court and the Constitution: A Critical View of Judicial Activism contends that the appointment of Warren as chief justice in 1953 launched the Supreme Court on a 16-year orgy of unprecedented judicial activism. While the author focuses his fire primarily upon Warren, the rubbery character and flexible principal that distinguished many members of the Warren Court also come under close scrutiny. Carter, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of California at Berkeley, writes that, under Warren, the Court was quickly transformed from an impartial forum of justice into a body of Constitutional anarchists. He argues that the liberal-left coalition focused its efforts on capturing the Supreme Court because it was unable to work its will sufficiently through the Congress and the Presidency. The author, who collaborated on the seven-volume History of the Army Air Forces in World War II, also contends that the only practical method of reforming the Court today is to pack it with conservatives, a procedure, he says, for which there is ample precedent. He warns that because the human thirst for power is insatiable, it is certain that this unlawful extension of the judicial authority will continue and become increasingly menacing to stable government and public order unless the court is contained and forced to return to its prescribed duties under the Constitution.

Author : Mark V. Tushnet
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 11,59 MB
Release : 1993
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780813916651

GET BOOK

The tenure of Earl Warren as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1953-69) was marked by a series of decisions unique in the history of the Court for the progressive agenda they bespoke. What made the Warren Court special? How can students of history and political science understand the Warren Court as part of constitutional history and politics? To answer such questions, nine well-known legal scholars and historians explore how each justice contributed to the distinctiveness of the Warren Court in Supreme Court history.

Author : Neal Devins
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 24,38 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Law
ISBN : 0199916543

GET BOOK

Constitutional law is clearly shaped by judicial actors. But who else contributes? Scholars in the past have recognized that the legislative branch plays a significant role in determining structural issues, such as separation of powers and federalism, but stopped there--claiming that only courts had the independence and expertise to safeguard individual and minority rights. In this readable and engaging narrative, the authors identify the nuts and bolts of the national dialogue and relate succinct examples of how elected officials and the general public often dominate the Supreme Court in defining the Constitution's meaning. Making use of case studies on race, privacy, federalism, war powers, speech, and religion, Devins and Fisher demonstrate how elected officials uphold individual rights in such areas as religious liberty and free speech as well as, and often better than, the courts. This fascinating debunking of judicial supremacy argues that nonjudicial contributions to constitutional interpretation make the Constitution more stable, more consistent with constitutional principles, and more protective of individual and minority rights.

Author : Morton J. Horwitz
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 50,42 MB
Release : 1999-04-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780809016259

GET BOOK

A study of the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren, from 1953 to 1969, discussing the impact of the liberal court's civil rights and civil liberties decisions on American constitutional law.

Author : Stephen Breyer
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 13,21 MB
Release : 2007-12-18
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0307424618

GET BOOK

A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls “active liberty”: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution’s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.

Author : John Hart Ely
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 13,59 MB
Release : 1981-08-15
Category : Law
ISBN : 0674263294

GET BOOK

This powerfully argued appraisal of judicial review may change the face of American law. Written for layman and scholar alike, the book addresses one of the most important issues facing Americans today: within what guidelines shall the Supreme Court apply the strictures of the Constitution to the complexities of modern life? Until now legal experts have proposed two basic approaches to the Constitution. The first, “interpretivism,” maintains that we should stick as closely as possible to what is explicit in the document itself. The second, predominant in recent academic theorizing, argues that the courts should be guided by what they see as the fundamental values of American society. John Hart Ely demonstrates that both of these approaches are inherently incomplete and inadequate. Democracy and Distrust sets forth a new and persuasive basis for determining the role of the Supreme Court today. Ely’s proposal is centered on the view that the Court should devote itself to assuring majority governance while protecting minority rights. “The Constitution,” he writes, “has proceeded from the sensible assumption that an effective majority will not unreasonably threaten its own rights, and has sought to assure that such a majority not systematically treat others less well than it treats itself. It has done so by structuring decision processes at all levels in an attempt to ensure, first, that everyone’s interests will be represented when decisions are made, and second, that the application of those decisions will not be manipulated so as to reintroduce in practice the sort of discrimination that is impermissible in theory.” Thus, Ely’s emphasis is on the procedural side of due process, on the preservation of governmental structure rather than on the recognition of elusive social values. At the same time, his approach is free of interpretivism’s rigidity because it is fully responsive to the changing wishes of a popular majority. Consequently, his book will have a profound impact on legal opinion at all levels—from experts in constitutional law, to lawyers with general practices, to concerned citizens watching the bewildering changes in American law.