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The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
written by Jeffrey Toobin
Studio : Doubleday
by Doubleday
Release Date : 2007-09-18
Publisher : Doubleday
Released : 2007-09-18
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780385516402
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 148 reviews)
List Price : $27.95
Our Price : $16.45
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Product Description |
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Bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin takes you into the chambers of the most important—and secret—legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, and reveals the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land.
Just in time for the 2008 presidential election—where the future of the Court will be at stake—Toobin reveals an institution at a moment of transition, when decades of conservative disgust with the Court have finally produced a conservative majority, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, presidential power, and church-state relations.
Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court through personalities—from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore—and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.
The Nine is the book bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin was born to write. A CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer, no one is more superbly qualified to profile the nine justices. |
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Not so much inside, as its impact on the outside and how to get in |
I liked this book a lot, it concerns the Supreme Court personalities and impacts from the mid Eighties to 2006, though the bulk of the book concentrates on the Clinton/Bush era. I read it after Woodward's `the Brethren', which deals with the years 1968-73. The tenures of the justices are so long, that this book is almost a continuation. The processes of picking and adjudicating cases are the same as described in the Brethren, as is the processes by which majorities opinions are shaped and preserved. However Chief Justice Rhenquist seems to have taken pride in the running a far more efficient process than his predecessor. One key difference seems to be that there is a more explicit process of caballing to ensure that a particular opinion becomes the majority, though still informal, it seems to be a more acknowledged behaviour than in the early 1970s.
The book's main focus is the political impact of the decisions taken - particularly on the `culture wars', and the more focused approach (particularly among Republicans) on getting candidates selected and approved who will take a conservative line.
The Rhenquist court, despite having 8 of 9 justices who were appointed by Republican presidents, was a disappointment to conservatives who wished to reverse the `liberal' trend of its predecessor courts. However, due in part to Rhenquist's focus on efficiency rather than philosophy and the peculiarly individualistic natures of Justice Scalia and Thomas, the courts opinions were influenced by those of Justice O'Connor; whose views were decidedly middle-of-the road - not against restricting abortion, but ensuring that the mother's health was given paramount consideration; not against school prayer as long as it wasn't promoted by school authorities; not in favour of forced integration, but in favour of desegration; not in favour of gay practice, but an upholder of rights to privacy, incorporating sexual orientation
The book is quite good on giving pen portraits of the character and concerns of each of the justices, and shows what a varied bunch they are. It is particularly good at demonstrating how the work, and its associated experiences, have changed Justices O'Connor, Stevens and Kennedy, while leaving Justices Souter, Scalia and Thomas almost unchanged. It's most telling impression on me was that both the Clinton (Ginsburg and Breyer) and Bush (Jnr) appointees (Roberts and Alito) were much more heavily scrutinised and their subsequent opinions were much more predictable, than previous appointees - Stevens,O'Connor and Souter were viewed a `squelches' by conservatives, appointed by Ford, Regan and Bush (Snr) respectively, they were viewed as having veered `leftward' upon appointment.
I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the political machinations around the appointment process of new justices, from Bork onwards. Bush Snr's approach seemed detached, Clinton's haphazard and chaotic approach, while Bush Jnr's was focused and ruthless, but also impersonal, in the sense that it seemed run by a selection team rather than a personal priority.
The book is best on the processes by which Bush vs. Gore was decided. Toobin is of the view that the Court shamed itself on this. I found this argument convincing, it seems the court intervened early, and the Justices took pre-determined positions, in short became too political. However there is also an argument that if the Court was to decide on a vote, then it had to do so, rather than let the re-counts and re-runs continue until chaos ensued. However, given the Republican appointed majority and the partisan process by which the court was invited to decide the case, I think I agree with Toobin that it was this Courts least fine hour, and indeed tainted this set of Justices in relations to their predecessors.
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More of a gossip description of the justiices |
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I felt that this book took more of a gossip description of the justices--who likes eachother, who tried to set up eachother on dates, who hated eachother. That could have been fine as an addendum but I wanted more meat on the issues and how each jusitce came to form their opinion and their stand. |
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Informative |
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If you've ever wanted to know what happens in the cloistered world of the Supreme Court, this book will give you a brief glimpse. It details not just the kinds of cases that the Supreme Court has heard over the last 30 years, but also what kind of people the Supreme Court Justices are and where they came from. Others have suggested there's a bias in this book, but I fail to see it. If the author spends a great deal of time talking about what conservatives were up to in filling the current nine seats, it's only because the last 30 years have been dominated by conservative presidents attempting to satisfy their conservative base. Anyway I found this book quite eye opening, and I hope anyone who is interested in how the Supreme Court works will give it a read. |
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3.5 out of 5 |
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The Nine is an in-depth portrayal of the current Supreme Court. Not only does Toobin cover the personality quirks and politics of the individual justices and their relationships with each other over time, he also analyzes the development and the current state of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on key issues like abortion, gay rights, and affirmative action. Other than a few interesting bits of trivia, I didn't really learn anything new from The Nine, but I was entertained, and I think this book is a good introduction to the Supreme Court for those without much previous exposure. |
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Worthy Sequel to The Brethren |
In The Nine, Jeffrey Toobin produces a worthy sequel to The Brethren. Covering roughly the period from 1987 to 2007, Mr. Toobin examines how the personalities of the individuals appointed to the court influence the outcome of decisions at the highest level.
In many respects, The Nine is the story of just two justices, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy. One of the first stories in the book is how Justices Souter, O'Connor and Kennedy crafted a middle of the road compromise in the Casey abortion case which stole the majority away from Chief Justice Rehnquist and kept the more conservative justices from sharply limiting Roe v. Wade.
The Nine traces Justice O'Connor's transformation from a conservative Goldwater Republican to a more liberal voice alienated from her party. The author analyzes Justice O'Connor (who was the only former legislator on the court) as a politician seeking compromise and narrow opinions and trying to reach results consistent with popular opinion.
Her fellow swing vote, Justice Kennedy, receives a less sympathetic treatment. He is portrayed as having a love for flowery rhetoric and empty phrases. Despite their differing styles, they frequently held the balance on the court.
The differing styles of the Kennedy-O'Connor axis had dramatic fallout in Bush v. Gore. In that case, Justice Kennedy inclined toward a dramatic equal protection theory, while Chief Justice Rehnquist opted toward a more technical result under Article II of the Constitution. Justice O'Connor felt that the Florida Supreme Court was playing politics trying to help Al Gore win the election and that the result didn't pass the smell test. She wanted to find a middle ground for striking down the Florida Supreme Court's decision without joining the conservatives on the court. As a result, she agreed to sign on to Anthony Kennedy's opinion, but only if he would tone down his grand pronouncements. In response, Justice Kennedy added a sentence stating that each case was unique and that the Court was not laying down any general principles. O'Connor the politician severely miscalculated here. The Court's opinion was so narrow that it appeared to apply in just one case: allowing George W. Bush to win the election. By trying to go for a narrow, middle of the road solution, Justice O'Connor steered the court into a result that was just as political as the meddling by the Florida Supreme Court which she found to be disagreeable.
The Nine has a good job of depicting the justices as individuals. Clarence Thomas gets a sympathetic portrayal as a NASCAR-loving man of the people who was far more engaged than commonly believed.
Jeffrey Toobin highlights Justice Souter's quirky sense of humor. On being mistaken for Justice Breyer, he was asked what he enjoyed most about serving on the Court. With a perfectly straight face, he replied that it was the honor of serving with David Souter.
The book also captures the unusual collegiality of a court which was sharply divided on ideological grounds. Chief Justices Rehnquist and Roberts are given credit by their colleagues for running a process that was fair and open in conference in contrast to the more heavy handed Warren Burger. Judges of differing viewpoints vacationed and played cards together. Indeed, one of the most poignant stories in the book is the sadness felt by Justice Ginsberg when her two best friends on the court, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor, were no longer there.
Mr. Toobin's liberal point of view shows in a few instances. He doesn't quite get the Federalist Society. He describes the Federalist Society as being the vanguard of a conservative revolution to re-make the court. However, other than a few statements of core principles, the Federalist Society does not take positions on issues or litigate cases. Rather, it is a debating society of conservative and libertarian lawyers who generally favor judicial restraint. Mr. Toobin also devotes several passages to the prominent role of the Constitution-in-Exile movement, a position so obscure that many conservatives are not aware that it exists. (See the recent discussion in the Volokh Conspiracy blog for proof of this).
Despite these minor shortcomings, Mr. Toobin has produced a very readable and well-researched book. In addition to sketching detailed portraits of the individual justices, the book is a good syllabus of the major opinions of the Supreme Court over the past 20 years. |
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