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Revised and updated to include the latest Supreme Court decisions, this classic text, now in its tenth edition, provides a concise overview of the judiciary in general and the Supreme Court in particular. The only book available that combines theory and practice of the judicial process with civil rights and liberties, The Judiciary acquaints students with the intricacies of our courts, the people who compose them, and their relationship to other branches of government, as well as to individuals and groups.

With the appointment of William H. Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States and Antonin Scalia as associate justice, there is renewed interest in questions of judicial activism and the role of the courts in protecting personal and economic liberties. To further public discussion of these fundamental questions, the Cato Institute is pleased to present this debate between Judge Scalia and Richard A.Epstein, James Parker Hall Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and editor of the Journal of Legal Studies. These papers were originally delivered at the Cato Institute's conference'Economic Liberties and the Judiciary'on October 26,1984, and appeared in the Winter 1985 issue of the Cato Journal.

Constitutionalism and Rights explores the ambivalent relationship between the American tradition of constitutionalism and the notions of rights that have emerged over the last three centuries. The six essays focus systematically on selected tensions between these two fundamental strands in the American tradition of liberty and self-government. Discussed are: ideas of rights and constitutionalism generally; mechanisms and procedures necessary to assure rights in a large bureaucratic state; rights as expressed in public welfare programs; innovations employed by the eighteenth-century Framers to achieve limited government as a means to securing fair and equal individual freedom; the dependence of rights on institutional devices and the rule of law; the need for public virtue (balancing individual rights with self-sacrifice for the common good) if the American constitutional system is to survive; and the dangers of individualism and individual rights posed by modern liberalism.The essayists are prominent scholars representing the disciplines of political science, government, and law. They all state their confidence in the American constitutional system, but they also voice doubts about the future if problems are not redressed. The editors conclude their introduction by expressing hope that this volume “will clarify some important issues and help us remember essential lessons of the past, as we continue in this great public conversation.”Constitutionalism and Rights is the first of a three-volume series examining significant features of the Constitution. The series, inspired by the bicentennial of that great achievement, consists of essays presented by scholars at three conferences on the Constitution held at Brigham Young University in 1985, 1986, and 1987, and several additional essays written especially for these volumes.Gary C. Bryner is an assistant professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Noel B. Reynolds is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University.

This book explores the state of rights in America, examines their roots, assesses their effectiveness, discusses their future, and considers how the experience of the U.S. in defining and securing rights can serve as an important source of ideas for other countries. Written by philosophers, legal scholars, and political scientists, the essays contained here consider how well constitutional rights have accomplished their purpose of securing basic liberties over the past 200 years and how well suited they are to protect our individual rights in the future, perhaps the next 200 years.At Brigham Young University's Political Science Department, Gary C. Bryner is Associate Professor. Bryner has co-authored Constitutionalism and Rights and co-edited The Constitution and the Regulation of Society also published by SUNY Press. At Brigham Young University's Political Science Department, A. Don Sorensen is Professor.

Political speech in the United States is undergoing a crisis. Glendon's acclaimed book traces the evolution of the strident language of rights in America and shows how it has captured the nation's devotion to individualism and liberty, but omitted the American traditions of hospitality and care for the community.

In this timely and provocative volume, some of the world's leading political and constitutional theorists come together to debate Michael Sandel's celebrated thesis that the United States is in the the grip of a flawed public philosophy -'procedural liberalism'. Beginning with an original stage-setting introduction by Ronald Beiner, and ending with a reply by Michael Sandel, Sandel's liberal and feminist critics square off with his communitarian and civic republican sympathizers in a lively and wide-ranging discussion spanning constitutional law, culture, and political economy. Practical, topical issues of immigration, gay marriage, federalism, adoption, abortion, corporate speech, militias, and economic disparity are debated alongside theories of civic virtue, citizenship, identity, and community. Not only does this volume provide the most comprehensive and insightful critique of Sandel's Democracy's Discontent to date - it also makes a very significant, substantive contribution to contemporary political and legal philosophy in its own right. It will prove essential reading for all those interested in the future of American politics, law, and public philosophy.

In this book, Edward Keynes examines the fundamental-rights philosophy and jurisprudence that affords constitutional protection to unenumerated liberty, property, and privacy rights. He is critical of the failure of the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt a coherent theory for identifying which rights are to be considered fundamental and how these private rights are to be balanced against the public interests that the government has a duty to articulate and promote. Keynes develops his argument by first surveying how substantive due process grew out of the tradition of Anglo-American jurisprudence and came to evolve over time. He pays special attention to the shift in its application early in the twentieth century, from protecting'liberty of contract'against economic regulation to protecting'privacy'and other noneconomic rights (as in Roe v. Wade) against social regulation.

In follow-up studies, dozens of reviews, and even a book of essays evaluating his conclusions, Gerald Rosenberg's critics—not to mention his supporters—have spent nearly two decades debating the arguments he first put forward in The Hollow Hope. With this substantially expanded second edition of his landmark work, Rosenberg himself steps back into the fray, responding to criticism and adding chapters on the same-sex marriage battle that ask anew whether courts can spur political and social reform. Finding that the answer is still a resounding no, Rosenberg reaffirms his powerful contention that it's nearly impossible to generate significant reforms through litigation. The reason? American courts are ineffective and relatively weak—far from the uniquely powerful sources for change they're often portrayed as. Rosenberg supports this claim by documenting the direct and secondary effects of key court decisions—particularly Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. He reveals, for example, that Congress, the White House, and a determined civil rights movement did far more than Brown to advance desegregation, while pro-choice activists invested too much in Roe at the expense of political mobilization. Further illuminating these cases, as well as the ongoing fight for same-sex marriage rights, Rosenberg also marshals impressive evidence to overturn the common assumption that even unsuccessful litigation can advance a cause by raising its profile. Directly addressing its critics in a new conclusion, The Hollow Hope, Second Edition promises to reignite for a new generation the national debate it sparked seventeen years ago.

Gerald Neuman discusses in historical and contemporary terms the repeated efforts of U.S. insiders to claim the Constitution as their exclusive property and to deny constitutional rights to aliens and immigrants--and even citizens if they are outside the nation's borders. Tracing such efforts from the debates over the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 to present-day controversies about illegal aliens and their children, the author argues that no human being subject to the governance of the United States should be a'stranger to the Constitution.'Thus, whenever the government asserts its power to impose obligations on individuals, it brings them within the constitutional system and should afford them constitutional rights. In Neuman's view, this mutuality of obligation is the most persuasive approach to extending constitutional rights extraterritorially to all U.S. citizens and to those aliens on whom the United States seeks to impose legal responsibilities. Examining both mutuality and more flexible theories, Neuman defends some constitutional constraints on immigration and deportation policies and argues that the political rights of aliens need not exclude suffrage. Finally, in regard to whether children born in the United States to illegally present alien parents should be U.S. citizens, he concludes that the Constitution's traditional shield against the emergence of a hereditary caste of'illegals'should be vigilantly preserved.

Which branch of government should be entrusted with safeguarding individual rights? Conventional wisdom assigns this responsibility to the courts, on the grounds that liberty can only be protected through judicial interpretation of bills of rights. In fact it is difficult for many people even to conceive of any other way that rights might be protected. John Dinan challenges this understanding by tracing and evaluating the different methods that have been used to protect rights in the United States from the founding until the present era.By examining legislative statutes, judicial decisions, convention proceedings, and popular initiatives in four representative states—Massachusetts, Virginia, Michigan, and Oregon—Dinan shows that rights have been secured in the American polity in three principal ways. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, rights were protected primarily through representative institutions. Then in the early twentieth century, citizens began to turn to direct democratic institutions to secure their rights. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that judges came to be seen as the chief protectors of liberties.By analyzing the relative ability of legislators, citizens, and judges to serve as guardians of rights, Dinan's study demonstrates that each is capable of securing certain rights in certain situations. Elected representatives are generally capable of protecting most rights, but popular initiatives provide an effective mechanism for securing rights in the face of legislative intransigence, and judicial decisions offer a superior means of protecting liberties in crisis times. Accordingly, rather than viewing rights protection as the peculiar province of any single institution, this task ought to be considered the proper responsibility of all these institutions.By undertaking a comparison of these institutional methods across such a wide expanse of time, Keeping the People's Liberties makes a highly original contribution to the literature on rights protection and provides a new perspective on debates about the contemporary role of representative, populist, and judicial institutions.