The Unpredictable Constitution

Reviews / Votes

The authors examine such issues as the death penalty, women and the Constitution, reasonable doubt in criminal cases, racism in American and South African courts, government benefits, and how courts should handle legal error. (Law & Social Inquiry) These insightful and witty discussions of some of today's toughest legal issues provide an insider's view of the court's role in constitutional interpretation. (Choice) A fascinating, sophisticated glimpse into the minds of appellate judgesthe judges who will encourage or oppose possible changes in our 'unpredictable constitution.' Norman Dorsen, one of the nation's leading scholars on individual rights (as well as a successful Supreme Court advocate and long an effective President of the ACLU), has edited this volume to illustrate how judges view their tasks. The differences among them assure a gripping as well as illuminating read, especially when the nation, with a new Administration, awaits changes in judicial personnel and their impact on judicial decision making. - Gerald Gunther,William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Emeritus, Stanford Law School The chapters that comprise this enormously valuable volumeincluding important contributions by two sitting Supreme Court Justices, seven distinguished judges of the U.S. courts of Appeals, and the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, and prefaced by a splendid introduction by Norman Dorsenare . . . filled with wisdom and wit and, without exception, shed on our unpredictable Constitution the ever-changing light that only so well chosen and diverse a company of authors could cast on this endlessly variable and ever-puzzling subject. - Laurence Tribe,Harvard Law School