The U.S. Supreme Court : a very short introduction / Linda Greenhouse.
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 ho...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Ebook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
[2012]
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| Series: | Very short introductions ;
306. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Oxford Very Short Introductions |
| Summary: | 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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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (126 pages) : illustrations, portraits. |
| Format: | Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0199365822 019992127X 1283428113 9780199365821 9780199921270 9781283428118 |