The Supreme Court

Picked it up on a whim and couldn't believe how much I liked it. I have no background in the law, but still found I understood everything he had to say.

Oustanding history of major decisions by the Court.

So far it's ok. At first I thought Rehnquist was trying to present the cases he dealt with when he was the Judge, but I was wrong. Instead, he went through the whole history of the Court, which is not that interesting to me because it wasn't detailed enough. However, so far I like the chapter about the New Deal Court because it involved a lot of cases on government power and civil liberties.

William H. Rehnquist's THE SUPREME COURT is the polar opposite of THE BRETHREN and THE NINE. It is a factually correct narrative of Supreme Court case law and history consistent with his conservative legal world view. It provides a strong look into the daily workings of the Court through his own brilliant career there, first as a law clerk to Justice Jackson in 1952, then as an associate...more

William H. Rehnquist's THE SUPREME COURT is the polar opposite of THE BRETHREN and THE NINE. It is a factually correct narrative of Supreme Court case law and history consistent with his conservative legal world view. It provides a strong look into the daily workings of the Court through his own brilliant career there, first as a law clerk to Justice Jackson in 1952, then as an associate justice appointed by Richard Nixon, and finally as chief justice appointed by Ronald Reagan. But it provides no insight into the complex conflicts, compromises and personal interactions of the nine opinionated justices on particular cases. For that you need Bob Woodward's THE BRETHREN or Jeffrey Toobin's THE NINE. Cynics have long suggested Rehnquist operated under three rules: (1)in a fight between an individual and the government, the government wins; (2) in a fight between the federal government and a state government, the state government wins; and (3) make no legal interpretation beyond a literal reading of the statute. Rehnquist was a gifted intellect who would certainly bristle at any of those notions, but I suspect history will be less kind to him than he was when he wrote THE SUPREME COURT.   hide

Great insight into the interworkings of the court.