One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam ownedby the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon,25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing intosouthern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. It was one of thedeadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly,more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenlyhomeless. Instead of accepting the small settlements offered by thecoal company's insurance offices, a few hundred of the survivorsbanded together to sue. This is the story of their triumph overincredible odds and corporate irresponsibility, as told by GeraldM. Stern, who as a young lawyer and took on the case and won.

Simple Justice is the definitive history ofthe landmark case Brown v. Board of Education and the epicstruggle for racial equality in this country. Combining intensiveresearch with original interviews with surviving participants,Richard Kluger provides the fullest possible view of the human andlegal drama in the years before 1954, the cumulative assaults onthe white power structure that defended segregation, and thestep-by-step establishment of a team of inspired black lawyers thatcould successfully challenge the law. Now, on the fiftiethanniversary of the unanimous Supreme Court decision that endedlegal segregation, Kluger has updated his work with a new finalchapter covering events and issues that have arisen since the bookwas first published, including developments in civil rights andrecent cases involving affirmative action, which rose directly outof Brown v. Board of Education.

In this amazing story of high stakes competition between twotitans, Richard Moran shows how the electric chair developed notout of the desire to be more humane but through an effort by onenineteenth-century electric company to discredit the other. In 1882, Thomas Edison ushered in the “age of electricity” whenhe illuminated Manhattan’s Pearl Street with his direct current(DC) system. Six years later, George Westinghouse lit up Buffalowith his less expensive alternating current (AC). The two menquickly became locked in a fierce rivalry, made all the morecomplicated by a novel new application for their product: theelectric chair. When Edison set out to persuade the state of NewYork to use Westinghouse’s current to execute condemned criminals,Westinghouse fought back in court, attempting to stop the firstelectrocution and keep AC from becoming the “executioner’scurrent.” In this meticulously researched account of the ensuinglegal battle and the horribly botched first execution, Moran r

For the first time, a collection of dissents from the mostfamous Supreme Court cases If American history can truly be traced through the majoritydecisions in landmark Supreme Court cases, then what about thedissenting opinions? In issues of race, gender, privacy, workers'rights, and more, would advances have been impeded or failuresrectified if the dissenting opinions were in fact the majorityopinions? In offering thirteen famous dissents-from Marbury v. Madison andBrown v. Board of Education to Griswold v. Connecticut and Lawrencev. Texas, each edited with the judges' eloquence preserved-renownedSupreme Court scholar Mark Tushnet reminds us that court decisionsare not pronouncements issued by the utterly objective, they are infact political statements from highly intelligent but partisanpeople. Tushnet introduces readers to the very concept of dissentin the courts and then provides useful context for each case,filling in gaps in the Court's history and providing an overview ofthe issues at

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 encouragewhat 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.

Located at the intersection of law, political science,philosophy, and literary theory, this is a work of constitutionaltheory that explores the nature of American constitutionalinterpretation through a reconsideration of the long-standingdebate between the interpretive theories of originalism andnonoriginalism. It traces that debate to a particular set ofpremises about the nature of language, interpretation, andobjectivity, premises that raise the specter of unconstrained,unstructured constitutional interpretation that has hauntedcontemporary constitutional theory. It presents the novel argumentthat a critique of the underlying premises of originalism dissolvesnot just originalism but nonoriginalism as well, which leads to therecognition that constitutional interpretation is already andalways structured. It makes this argument in terms of the firstprinciple of the American political system: by their fidelity tothe Constitution, Americans are a textual people in that they livein and through the terms of a fun

Wilbert Rideau, an award-winning journalist who spentforty-four years in prison, delivers a remarkable memoir of crime,punishment, and ultimate triumph. After killing a bank teller in a moment of panic during a botchedrobbery, Wilbert Rideau was sentenced to death at the age ofnineteen. He spent several years on death row at Angola before hissentence was commuted to life, where, as editor of the prisonnewsmagazine The Angolite, he undertook a mission to expose andreformLouisiana's iniquitousjustice system from the inside. Vivid,incisive, and compassionate, this is a detailed account of prisonlife and a man who accepted responsibility for his actions andworked to redeem himself. It is a story about not giving up;finding love in unexpected places; the power of kindness; and theability to do good, no matter where you are.

For more than two decades, Vanity Fair has published DominickDunne’s brilliant, revelatory chronicles of the most famous crimes,trials, and punishments of our time. Here, in one volume, areDominick Dunne’s mesmerizing tales of justice denied and justiceaffirmed. Whether writing of Claus von Bülow’s romp through twotrials; the Los Angeles media frenzy surrounding O.J. Simpson; thedeath by fire of multibillionaire banker Edmond Safra; or theGreenwich, Connecticut, murder of Martha Moxley and theindictment—decades later—of Michael Skakel, Dominick Dunne tells ithonestly and tells it from his unique perspective. His search forthe truth is relentless.

There is no more powerful, detested, misunderstood AfricanAmerican in our public life than Clarence Thomas. SupremeDiscomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas is a hauntingportrait of an isolated and complex man, savagely reviled by muchof the black community, not entirely comfortable in white society,internally wounded by his passage from a broken family and ruralpoverty in Georgia, to elite educational institutions, to thepinnacle of judicial power. His staunchly conservative positions oncrime, abortion, and, especially, affirmative action have exposedhim to charges of heartlessness and hypocrisy, in that he ishimself the product of a broken home who manifestly benefited fromracially conscious admissions policies. Supreme Discomfort is a superbly researched and reportedwork that features testimony from friends and foes alike who havenever spoken in public about Thomas before—including a candidconversation with his fellow justice and ideological ally, AntoninScalia. It offers a long-overdue windo

In 1787, the American union was in disarray. The incompatibledemands of the separate states threatened its existence; somestates were even in danger of turning into the kind of tyranny theyhad so recently deposed. A truly national government was needed, one that could raisemoney, regulate commerce, and defend the states against foreignthreats–without becoming as overbearing as England. Sothirty-six-year-old James Madison believed. That summer, theVirginian was instrumental in organizing the ConstitutionalConvention, in which one of the world’s greatest documents would bedebated, created, and signed. Inspired by a sense of history in themaking, he kept the most extensive notes of any attendee. Now two esteemed scholars have made these minutes accessible toeveryone. Presented with modern punctuation and spelling, judiciouscuts, and helpful notes–plus fascinating background information onevery delegate and an overview of the tumultuous times–here is thegreat drama of how the Constituti

'We have no choice but to go fight,' WaLty said,his voice still hoarse, his delivery slow. 'We try to piecetogether some proof. We go to court and fight Likehell, and when we Lose we can tell our clients that we foughtthe good fight. In every Lawsuit,somebody wins, somebody Loses.Sure, we'll get our butts kicked, but at this point I'drather walk out of the courtroom with my head upthan deal with sanctions and malpractice claims.'

People with disabilities forging the newest and last humanrights movement of the century.

From prosecuting (and defending) murderers in the Bronx tohandling the public and private problems of Manhattan’s elite, Mouthpiece recounts the colorful adventures of New YorkCity’s ultimate legal operator. “In the pages before us, the Counselor tells a saga’s worth oftales of the city. As the saying goes, he’s got a million ofthem.” — Tom Wolfe, from his Introduction Edward Hayes is that unusual combination: the likable lawyer, onewho could have stepped off the stages of Guys and Dolls or Chicago . Mouthpiece is his story—an irreverent,entertaining, and revealing look at the practice of law in moderntimes and a social and political anatomy of New York City. Itrecounts Hayes’s childhood in the tough Irish sections of Queensand his eventual escape to the University of Virginia and then toColumbia Law School. Not at all white-shoe-firm material, Hayesheaded to the hair-raising, crime-ridden South Bronx of themidseventies—first as a homicide prosecutor and then as a defenseattor

Can the police strip-search a woman who has been arrested fora minor traffic violation? Can a magazine publish an embarrassingphoto of you without your permission? Does your boss have the rightto read your email? Can a company monitor its employees'off-the-job lifestyles--and fire those who drink, smoke, or livewith a partner of the same sex? Although the word privacy does notappear in the Constitution, most of us believe that we have aninalienable right to be left alone. Yet in arenas that range fromthe battlefield of abortion to the information highway, privacy isunder siege. In this eye-opening and sometimes hair-raising book,Alderman and Kennedy survey hundreds of recent cases in whichordinary citizens have come up against the intrusions ofgovernment, businesses, the news media, and their own neighbors. Atonce shocking and instructive, up-to-date and rich in historicalperspective, The Right to Private is an invaluable guide toone of the most charged issues of our time.

?Over 3,000 legal terms defined ?Revised edition with the most up-to-date terminology

Courtroom 302 is the fascinating story of one year inChicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felonycourthouse in the country. Here we see the system through the eyesof the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroombut in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, thespectators' gallery. From the daily grind of the court to thehighest-profile case of the year, Steve Bogira’s masterfulinvestigation raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, andjustice in America.

This book, based on the Tanner lectures on Human Values thatJustice Stephen Breyer delivered at Harvard University in November2004, defines the term “active liberty” as a sharing of thenation’s sovereign authority with its citizens. Regarding theConstitution as a guide for the application of basic Americanprinciples to a living and changing society rather than as anarsenal of rigid legal means for binding and restricting it,Justice Breyer argues that the genius of the Constitution rests notin any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead andgone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope withcurrent problems. Giving us examples of this approach in the areas of free speech,federalism, privacy, affirmative action, statutory interpretation,and administrative law, Justice Breyer states that courts shouldtake greater account of the Constitution’s democratic nature whenthey interpret constitutional and statutory texts. He also insiststhat the people, through partici

In this updated and expanded edition of The Tyranny of GoodIntentions , Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton renewtheir valiant campaign to reclaim that which is rightlyours–liberty protected by the rule of law. They show how crusadinglegislators and unfair prosecutors are remaking American law into aweapon wielded by the government and how the erosion of the legalprinciples we hold dear–such as habeas corpus and the prohibitionagainst self-incrimination–is destroying the presumption ofinnocence. A new introduction and new chapters cover recent marqueecases and make this provocative book essential reading for anyonewho cringes at the thought of unbridled state power and sees ourcivil liberties slowly slipping away in the name of the War onDrugs, the War on Crime, and the War on Terror.

There is an undercover war going on in America that impactseveryone's life far more than the legal issues that typically grabthe headlines. The conservative movement has been systematicallyturning back a century's worth of the evolving gains andprotections found in the common law-the areas of law that affectthe everyday activities of ordinary people. Throughout the twentieth century, contract, property, andpersonal injury law evolved to take more account of socialconditions and the needs of consumers, workers, and less powerfulmembers of American society. Contracts were interpreted in light ofcommon sense, property ownership was subjected to reasonable-useprovisions to protect the environment, and consumers were protectedagainst dangerous products. But all that is changing. Conservatives have a clear agenda toturn back the clock on the common law to maximize the profits ofbig business. Some significant inroads have already been made toprotect gun manufacturers from lawsuits, enforce form co

“The best legal read . . . in decades. A brilliantlyentertaining work, both for the lawyer and the layman.” Washington Times Robert S. Bennett has been a lawyer for more than forty years. Inthat time, he’s taken on dozens of high-pro?le and groundbreakingcases and emerged as the go-to guy for the nation’s elite. BobBennett gained international recognition as one of America’s bestlawyers for leading the defense of President Bill Clinton in thePaula Jones case. He has always fought for justice. This is hisstory. Born in Brooklyn and an amateur boxer in his youth, Bennett hasoften brought his street-?ghter’s mentality to the courtroom. Hiscase history is a who’s who of ?gures who have dominated legalheadlines: superlobbyist Tommy Corcoran, former secretaries ofdefense Clark Clifford and Caspar Weinberger, Marge Schott, and,most recently, New York Times reporter Judith Miller and formerWorld Bank president Paul Wolfowitz. Throughout the telling of his life in court, Be

On June 28, 1972 in a South Bronx subway station, John Skagen,a white off-duty policeman on his way home, suddenly and withoutapparent provocation, ordered James Richardson, a black man on hisway to work, to get against the wall and put his hands up.Richardson had a gun, and the two exchanged shots. In the meleethat followed, Skagen was fatally wounded by a cop who rushed tothe scene. In the ensuing trial, William Kunstler handledRichardson's defense and the author of this book, then assistantdistrict attorney, prosecuted the case. Here is a first-hand,behind-the-scenes account of every step of the proceedings.