The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A revelatory look at the Warren Burger Supreme Court finds that it was not moderate or transitional, but conservative—and it shaped today’s constitutional landscape. It is an “important book…a powerful corrective to the standard narrative of the Burger Court” (The New York Times Book Review).
When Richard Nixon campaigned for the presidency in 1968 he promised to change the Supreme Court. With four appointments to the court, including Warren E. Burger as the chief justice, he did just that. In 1969, the Burger Court succeeded the famously liberal Warren Court, which had significantly expanded civil liberties and was despised by conservatives across the country.
The Burger Court is often described as a “transitional” court between the Warren Court and the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts, a court where little of importance happened. But as this “landmark new book” (The Christian Science Monitor) shows, the Burger Court veered well to the right in such areas as criminal law, race, and corporate power. Authors Graetz and Greenhouse excavate the roots of the most significant Burger Court decisions and in “elegant, illuminating arguments” (The Washington Post) show how their legacy affects us today.
“Timely and engaging” (Richmond Times-Dispatch), The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right draws on the personal papers of the justices as well as other archives to provide “the best kind of legal history: cogent, relevant, and timely” (Publishers Weekly).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Veteran Supreme Court reporter Greenhouse (Becoming Justice Blackmun) and Graetz (Death by a Thousand Cuts) have written a detailed, accessible revisionist history of Warren Burger's tenure as chief justice from 1969 to 1986. As the authors' introduction explains, the "received wisdom" about those 17 years has been that "nothing much happened." They convincingly argue that the Supreme Court decisions rendered during that era paved the way for more recent conservative landmark decisions such as the highly controversial 2010 Citizens United ruling on campaign finance. Chapter after chapter recounts the gradual erosion of the doctrines of the prior, progressive Earl Warren Court in virtually all areas of American life; for instance, while the expansion of the rights that had been granted to criminal defendants (e.g., Miranda warnings) survived, they did so as facades, as Burger's court drastically limited their effectiveness. This is the best kind of legal history: cogent, relevant, and timely, given the focus on the Court's role and power after the death of Justice Scalia.
