This volume explores the many ways in which politics shapes the allegedly nonpartisan judicial system in America, ranging from how judges are selected to the bench to how they rule when they get there. Each title in the Contemporary Debates series examines the veracity of controversial claims or beliefs surrounding a major political/cultural issue in the United States. Each book gives readers a clear and unbiased understanding of current high-interest issues by informing them about falsehoods, half-truths, and misconceptions-and confirming the factual validity of other assertions-that have gained traction in America's cultural and political discourse. This volume in the series provides a deeply researched and even-handed account of the relationship between America's judicial branch-which is supposed to view law through a nonpartisan lens-and the sometimes poisonous partisanship that is such a notorious factor in the nation's other two branches of government. Is political combat over judicial nominations worse than ever before? What impact is the politicization of the courts having on public faith in the legitimacy of the courts and our wider political system? Was former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day right when she asserted that "judicial independence is a bedrock principle of our court system, and we are losing it"? This work will provide insights into all these questions and more.

Politicians have long questioned, or even been openly hostile to, the legitimacy of judicial authority, but that authority seems to have become more secure over time. What explains the recurrence of hostilities and yet the security of judicial power? Addressing this question anew, Stephen Engel points to the gradual acceptance of dissenting views of the Constitution, that is, the legitimacy and loyalty of stable opposition. Politicians' changing perception of the threat posed by opposition influenced how manipulations of judicial authority took shape. Engel's book brings our understanding of these manipulations into line with other developments, such as the establishment of political parties, the acceptance of loyal opposition, the development of different modes of constitutional interpretation and the emergence of rights-based pluralism.

Following on Making Civil Rights Law, which covered Thurgood Marshall's career from 1936-1961, this book focuses on Marshall's career on the Supreme Court from 1961-1991, where he was the first African-American Justice. Based on thorough research in the Supreme Court papers of Justice Marshall and others, this book describes Marshall's approach to constitutional law in areas ranging from civil rights and the death penalty to abortion and poverty. It locates the Supreme Court from 1967 to 1991 in a broader socio-political context, showing how the nation's drift toward conservatism affected the Court's debates and decisions.

This is the first comprehensive treatment of the topic of the Rights of the Child as reflected in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It reviews all decisions of the Inter-American Court relating to the Rights of the Child and analyses the principles held therein making them available to practitioners, academics and students of this area of the law.

With engaging, new contributions from major figures in the field, 'The Oxford Handbook of the American Presidency' provides the key point of reference for anyone working in American politics today.

American Criminal Courts: Legal Process and Social Context provides a complete picture of both the theory and day-to-day reality of criminal courts in the United States. The book begins by exploring how democratic processes affect criminal law, the documents that define law, the organizational structure of courts at the federal and state levels, the overlapping authority of the appeals process, and the effect of legal processes such as precedent, jurisdiction, and the underlying philosophies of various types of courts. In practice, criminal courts are staffed by people who represent different perspectives, occupational pressures, and organizational goals. Thus, this book includes chapters on actors in the traditional courtroom workgroup (judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, etc.) as well as those outside the court who seek to influence it, including advocacy groups, the media, and politicians. It is the interplay between the court's legal processes and the social actors in the courtroom that makes the application of criminal law fascinating. By focusing on the tension between the law and the actors inside of it, American Criminal Courts: Legal Process and Social Context demonstrates how the courts are a product of "law in action" and presents content in a way that enables you to understand not only the "how" of the U.S. criminal court system, but also the "why." Clearly explains both the principles underlying the development of criminal law and the practical reality of the court system in action A complete picture of the criminal justice continuum, including prosecution, defense, judges, juries, sentencing, and pre-trial and appeals processes Feature boxes look at how courts are portrayed in the media; identify landmark due-process cases; illustrate the pros and cons of the courts’ discretionary decision-making; examine procedures and the goals of justice; and highlight the various types of careers available within the criminal courts

The Birth of the Modern Constitution recounts the history of the United States Supreme Court in the momentous yet usually overlooked years between the constitutional revolution in the 1930s and Warren-Court judicial activism in the 1950s. 1941-1953 marked the emergence of legal liberalism, in the divergent activist efforts of Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and Wiley Rutledge. The Stone/Vinson Courts consolidated the revolutionary accomplishments of the New Deal and affirmed the repudiation of classical legal thought, but proved unable to provide a substitute for that powerful legitimating explanatory paradigm of law. Hence the period bracketed by the dramatic moments of 1937 and 1954, written off as a forgotten time of failure and futility, was in reality the first phase of modern struggles to define the constitutional order that will dominate the twenty-first century.

With an unparalleled amount of empirical material, this is the most comprehensive introduction to comparative politics written by the leading experts in the field

Himself a Lumbee Indian and political scientist, David E. Wilkins charts the "fall in our democratic faith" through fifteen landmark cases in which the Supreme Court significantly curtailed Indian rights. These case studies--and their implications for all minority groups--are important and timely in the context of American government re-examining and redefining itself.