The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This engaging history of the Supreme Court of the United States is a living-memory overview basically going from the Rehnquist era to current Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts. (In 1869, however, the Circuit Judges Act reset the number of judges to nine, so before that is basically irrelvant by the title of the work.) From Toobin I expected for some reason something much more dry, a work that only a legal analyst could enjoy. But, I do enjoy Toobin's commentary on cable news and I also enjoyed this work.
There is, of course, a common thread of poltics and legal issues, but Toobin does not lay these out for wonkish dissection, but rather skips along on the highlights of the interplay of decisions and political mechanations in a way that is telling of our government's working and perhaps weaknesses. Deeper dives into Roe v. Wade, Bush V. Gore, the Terry Schiavo case and the delicate issues of pulling the Ten Commandments away from a Texas courthouse make up the bulk of the legal issues analyzed.
The nicest surprise to me was "Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court" part of after-work jogs, poker games, travel, and more by the very human members of this illustrious bench. Of these revelations I was most entertained by the throwback to pre-electrificaion New England in David Souter and the though of Clarence Thomas camping out in his RV at a Wal*Mart parking lot in search of NASCAR events.
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