Author Description

This book is an incisive commentary on recent Supreme Court decisions from America's foremost constitutional scholars. For nearly all his tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist has enjoyed the support of a slim but usually solid majority of his fellow justices. With it he has been able to effect a dramatic shift to the right in many vital areas of constitutional law. Displaying a judicial activism not seen since the 1930s, Rehnquist and his allies, in a series of 5-4 decisions, have undermined civil rights and weakened the federal government's ability to respond to pressing social needs. As the Rehnquist court concludes its fifteenth term, the well-known constitutional authority Herman Schwartz has assembled seventeen distinguished legal scholars to evaluate its record on the many controversial issues that have come before it. Among them are Stephen Bright on capital punishment, Charles Ogletree on criminal procedure, Norman Redlich on religion, Allan Morrison and David Vladeck on regulation, and John Mackenzie on Bush v. Gore. The book concludes with an overall reflection on Rehnquist's legacy by Tom Wicker.