A Distinct Judicial Power: The Origins of an Independent Judiciary, 1606-1787, by Scott Douglas Gerber, provides the first comprehensive critical analysis of the origins of judicial independence in the United States. Part I examines the political theory of an independent judiciary. Gerber begins chapter 1 by tracing the intellectual origins of a distinct judicial power from Aristotle's theory of a mixed constitution to John Adams's modifications of Montesquieu. Chapter 2 describes the debates during the framing and ratification of the federal Constitution regarding the independence of the federal judiciary. Part II, the bulk of the book, chronicles how each of the original thirteen states and their colonial antecedents treated their respective judiciaries. This portion, presented in thirteen separate chapters, brings together a wealth of information (charters, instructions, statutes, etc.) about the judicial power between 1606 and 1787, and sometimes beyond. Part III, the concluding segment, explores the influence the colonial and early state experiences had on the federal model that followed and on the nature of the regime itself. It explains how the political theory of an independent judiciary examined in Part I, and the various experiences of the original thirteen states and their colonial antecedents chronicled in Part II, culminated in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. It also explains how the principle of judicial independence embodied by Article III made the doctrine of judicial review possible, and committed that doctrine to the protection of individual rights.

In Russia, as the confrontation over the constitutional distribution of authority raged, Boris Yeltsin's economic program regularly wended its way in and out of the Constitutional Court until Yeltsin finally suspended that court in the aftermath of his clash with the hard-line parliament. In Europe, French and German legislators and executives now routinely alter desired policies in response to or in anticipation of the pronouncements of constitutional courts. In Latin America and Africa, courts are--or will be-- important participants in ongoing efforts to establish constitutional rules and policies protect new or fragile democracies from the threats of military intervention, ethnic conflict, and revolution. This global expansion of judicial power, or judicialization of politics is accompanied by an increasing domination of negotiating or decision making arenas by quasi- judicial procedures. For better or for worse, the judicialization of politics has become one of the most significant trends of the end of the millenium. In this book, political scientists, legal scholars, and judges around the world trace the intellectual origins of this trend, describe its occurence--or lack of occurence--in specific nations, analyze the circumstances and conditions that promote or retard judicialization, and evaluate the phenomenon from a variety of intellectual and ideological perspectives.

Includes decisions of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 1902-1934, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1934-1959, and various other courts of the District of Columbia.

Vols. for 1902- include decisions of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and various other courts of the District of Columbia.