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THE FEDERALIST
WAR OF IDEAS


For a long time, during the middle of the twentieth century, it wasn't even clear what it meant to be a judicial conservative. Then, with great suddenness, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, judges and lawyers on the right found a voice and an agenda. Their goals reflected and reinforced the political goals of the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

Earl Warren, who served as chief justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969, exerted a powerful and lasting influence over American law. The former California governor, who was appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, put the fight against state-sponsored racism at the heart of his agenda. Starting in 1954, with Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public education, the justices began more than a dozen years of sustained, and usually unanimous, pressure against the forces of official segregation. Within the legal profession in particular, Warren's record on civil rights gave him tremendous moral authority. Warren and his colleagues, especially William J. Brennan Jr., his close friend and strategist, used that capital to push the law in more liberal directions in countless other areas as well. On freedom of speech, on the rights of criminal suspects, on the emerging field of privacy, the Warren Court transformed American law.

To be sure, Warren faced opposition, but many of his Court's decisions quickly worked their way into the permanent substructure of American law. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which protected newspapers that published controversial speech; Miranda v. Arizona, which established new rules for interrogating criminal suspects; even Griswold v. Connecticut, which announced a right of married people to buy birth control, under the broader heading of privacy--all these cases, along with the Warren Court's many pronouncements on race, became unassailable precedents.

Richard M. Nixon won the presidency in part by promising to rein in the liberalism of the Court, but even though he had the good fortune to name four justices in three years, the law itself wound up little changed. Under Warren E. Burger, whom Nixon named to succeed Warren, the Court in some respects became more liberal than ever. It was under Burger that the court approved the use of school busing, expanded free speech well beyond Sullivan, forced Nixon himself to turn over the Watergate tapes, and even, for a time, ended all executions in the United States. Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights decision that still defines judicial liberalism, passed by a 7-2 vote in 1973, with three of the four Nixon nominees (Burger, Lewis F. Powell, and Harry A. Blackmun) in the majority. Only Rehnquist, joined by Byron R. White, appointed by John F. Kennedy, dissented.

Through all these years--from the 1950s through the 1970s--the conservatives on the Court like White and Potter Stewart did not differ greatly from their liberal colleagues. The conservatives were less willing to second-guess the work of police officers and to reverse criminal convictions; they were more willing to limit remedies for past racial discrimination; they deferred somewhat more to elected officials about how to organize and run the government. But on the big legal questions, the war was over, and the liberals had won. And their victories went  beyond the judgments of the Supreme Court. The Warren Court transformed virtually the entire legal culture, especially law schools.

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It was not surprising, then, that on the day after Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980, Yale Law School went into mourning. On that day, Steven...

 

Toobin's take on the nine people who sit on the nation's highest court is intimate, personal, and vital. He focuses mostly on the personalities in the Rehnquist Court and the current Roberts Court, showing how character, background, and political philosophy influence the decisions made by the Court on the great issues like civil rights, presidential powers, church-state relations, and the defining issue of the past thirty years--abortion. Don Leslie reads Toobin's complex analyses of the justices with feeling and understanding, neither exaggerating nor minimizing the issues. He is faithful to the author's affection for certain justices--O'Connor, Souter, and Rehnquist--while being respectful of his antipathy to others. Behind-the-scenes struggles, such as Bush v. Gore, are explored in detail, because they affect the future and because, though changes in the Court's direction are snail slow, they ultimately define the United States' role in the world. P.E.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

 

"Compelling. . . . Driven by the author's assured narrative voice, The Nine is as informative as it is fascinating, as insightful as it is readable."

 

"Smart and entertaining. . . . The Nine is engaging, erudite, candid, and accessible, often hard to put down. Toobin is a natural storyteller, and the stories he tells are gripping."

 

"Toobin's sparkling new work is anecdotally rich and clearly written. . . . A testimony to [his] skill."

 

"Intelligent and even-handed. . . . Toobin's access to the Supremes and their secret little world is phenomenal."

 

"The Nine not only provides a vivid narrative history of the Court's recent history, but also gives the reader an intimate look at individual justices, showing how personality, judicial philosophy and personal alliances can inform decisions that have huge consequences for the entire country. . . . Driven by the author's assured narrative voice, The Nine is as informative as it is fascinating, as insightful as it is readable."

 

"Every decade or so, an enterprising and intelligent outsider like Toobin can come along and shine a muchneeded spotlight on the place. . . . The Nine is engaging, erudite, candid and accessible, often hard to put down. Toobin is a natural storyteller, and the stories he tells are gripping. . . . [He] writes about the court more fluidly and fluently than anyone."

 

"The Nine is the latest, and by far the best [book] . . . about the Supreme Court."

 

"This is a remarkable, riveting book. So great are Toobin's narrative skills that both the justices and their inner world are brought vividly to life."

 

"[An] absorbing group profile. . . . [Toobin] deftly distills the issues and enlivens his narrative of the Court's internal wranglings with sharp thumbnail sketches"

 

"A compelling look at the power and the politics behind the Supreme Court."

 

"A major achievement, lucid and probing."

 

The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
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