NCJ Number
139712
Date Published
1992
Length
542 pages
Annotation
Intended for use in undergraduate courses, this text examines constitutional law and its evolution using a combination of case excerpts and commentary, with emphasis on the role of political influences inside and outside the United States Supreme Court.
Abstract
The text notes the impacts on Supreme Court decisions of the ways that lawyers and interest groups frame legal disputes, the ideological and behavioral propensities of the justices, the politics of judicial selection, public opinion, and the positions taken by elected officials. It also includes photographs of litigants, descriptions of the situations behind the law, tables and figures on Court trends, and profiles of influential groups and justices. Individual sections consider cases relating to the separation of powers, judicial review, constraints on judicial power, congressional authority over internal affairs, the scope and sources of legislative powers, formal powers of the executive, executive immunity and privilege, and presidential power during war and national emergencies. Other chapters focus on relations between the Federal and State governments, the commerce power, the power to tax and spend, law regarding contracts and takings, and economic substantive due process. Footnotes, tables, photographs, reading lists, appended background information and list of justices, subject index, and case index