This 2001 volume investigates the nature of constitutionaldemocratic government in the United States and elsewhere. Theeditors introduce a basic conceptual framework which thecontributors clarify and develop in eleven essays organized intothree separate sections. The first section deals withconstitutional founding and the founders' use of cultural symbolsand traditions to facilitate acceptance of a new regime. The seconddiscusses alternative constitutional structures and their effectson political outcomes. The third focuses on processes ofconstitutional change and on why founders might choose to makeformal amendments relatively difficult or easy to achieve. The bookis distinctive because it provides comprehensive tools foranalyzing and comparing different forms of constitutionaldemocracy. These tools are discussed in ways that will be ofinterest to students and readers in political science, law, historyand political philosophy.

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.

Computers and the Law provides readers with an introduction tothe legal issues associated with computing – particularly in themassively networked context of the Internet. Assuming no previousknowledge of the law or any special knowledge of programming orcomputer science, this textbook offers undergraduates of alldisciplines and professionals in the computing industry anunderstanding of basic legal principles and an awareness of thepeculiarities associated with legal issues in cyberspace. This isnot a law school casebook, but rather a variety of carefullychosen, relevant cases presented in redacted form. The full casesare available on an ancillary Web site. The pervasiveness ofcomputing in modern society has generated numerous legalambiguities. This book introduces readers to the fundamentalworkings of the law in physical space and suggests the opportunityto create new types of laws with nontraditional goals.

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.

In pursuit of fairness at any cost, we have created a societyparalyzed by legal fear: Doctors are paranoid and principalspowerless. Little league coaches, scared of liability, stopvolunteering. Schools and hospitals start to crumble. The commongood fades, replaced by a cacophony of people claiming their“individual rights.” By turns funny and infuriating, this startling book dissects thedogmas of fairness that allow self-interested individuals to bullythe rest of society. Philip K. Howard explains how, trying to honorindividual rights, we removed the authority needed to maintain afree society. Teachers don’t even have authority to maintain orderin the classroom. With no one in charge, the safe course is toavoid any possible risk. Seesaws and diving boards are removed.Ridiculous warning labels litter the American landscape: “Caution:Contents Are Hot.” Striving to protect “individual rights,” we ended up losing muchof our freedom. When almost any decision that someone disagreeswi

This 2004 book is a comparative study of the American legaldevelopment in the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on Illinois andVirginia, supported by observations from six additional states, thebook traces the crucial formative moment in the development of anAmerican system of common law in northern and southern courts. Theprocess of legal development, and the form the basic analyticalcategories of American law came to have, are explained as theproducts of different responses to the challenge of new industrialtechnologies, particularly railroads. The nature of those responseswas dictated by the ideologies that accompanied the social,political, and economic orders of the two regions. American commonlaw, ultimately, is found to express an emerging model ofcitizenship, appropriate to modern conditions. As a result, theprocess of legal development provides an illuminating perspectiveon the character of American political thought in a formativeperiod of the nation.

Co-edited and introduced by Toni Morrison, winner of the NobelPrize in Literature, Birth of a Nation'hood elucidates as neverbefore the grim miasma of the O.J. Simpson case, which has elicitedgargantuan fascination. As they pertain to the scandal, the issues of race, sex,violence, money, and the media are refracted through twelvepowerful essays that have been written especially for this book bydistinguished intellectuals--black and white, male and female.Together these keen analyses of a defining American moment cast achilling gaze on the * and spectacle of the insidious tensionsthat rend our society, even as they ponder the proper historical,cultural, political, legal, psychological, and linguisticramifications of the affair. With contributions by: Toni Morrison, George Lipsitz, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., withAderson Bellegarde Francois and Linda Y. Yueh, Nikol G. Alexanderand Drucilla Cornell, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Ishmael Reed,Leola Johnson and David Roediger, Andrew Ross, P

This historical narrative of the Salem witch trials takesits dialogue from actual trial records but applies modernpsychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria. Starkey's senseof drama also vividly recreates the atmosphere of pity and terrorthat fostered the evil and suffering of this human tragedy.

The Religious Right has dedicated much of the last thirty years to molding the federal judiciary, always with an eye toward casting the Supreme Court in its image. Through broad political work that has involved grassroots campaigns as much as aggressive lobbying, and a welltended career path for conservative law students and attorneys, the Right has been incredibly effective in influencing major Court decisions on everything from laws banning prayer in school to women's secure access to abortion and birth control. How will the courts set in place in recent decades confront stem cell research, gay rights, or euthanasia in a new era? In The Court and the Cross, attorney and legal journalist Frederick Lane draws on legal history and savvy political analysis to expose, in layperson's terms, the Religious Right's unrelenting efforts to declare the United States a Christian nation.

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

The death penalty is one of the most hotly contested issues inAmerica today. Evidence continues to mount that many innocentpeople have been executed or are currently living on death row, andthat minority groups and the poor suffer from a shoddy publicdefense system and discriminatory application of capital charges.Meanwhile, the myth of deterrence has been revealed to be false,and an increasing number of Americans are beginning to questiontheir support for capital punishment. Legal Lynching offers a succinct, accessible introduction to thedebate over the death penalty's history and future, exposing achilling frequency of legal error, systemic racial and economicdiscrimination, and pervasive government misconduct. This is anessential book for readers across the political spectrum who wishto cut through the common myths and assumptions about the efficacyand morality of state-sanctioned killing.

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

'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.'