Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court - Softcover

Lazarus, Edward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143035274 ISBN 13: 9780143035275

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2005

Synopsis

When Closed Chambers was first published, it was met with a firestorm of controversy—as well as a shower of praise—for being the first book to break the code of silence about the inner workings of this country’s most powerful court. In this eloquent, trailblazing account, with a new chapter covering Bush v. Gore, Guantanamo, and other recent controversial court decisions, Edward Lazarus, who served as a clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, presents a searing indictment of a court at war with itself and often in neglect of its constitutional duties. Combining memoir, history, and legal analysis, Lazarus reveals in astonishing detail the realities of what takes place behind the closed doors of the U.S. Supreme Court—an institution that through its rulings holds the power to affect the life of every American.

About this title

Review:

Edward Lazarus, a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, spills the beans on an institution that values silence. Nobody is supposed to understand what happens behind the scenes of the high court--that's why the justices rarely speak to the media--but Lazarus tells all he knows from his time as a top aide to Blackmun in the Supreme Court's 1988 term. There's a lot of legal theory and history, but it's well presented and usually focuses on touchstone issues in U.S. politics; cases involving abortion, the death penalty, and racial preferences receive sustained treatment in these pages. There are gossipy bits, too, revealing unflattering details about several current justices. Sure to be one of the more controversial books of the year. --John J. Miller

From the Inside Flap:

Court of the United States is the most powerful court in the world.  It is also the branch of our government most shrouded in mystery, misunderstanding, and myth..  Isolated in a marble temple, supposedly insulated from the pressures of politics, nine unelected Justices are charged with protecting our most cherished rights and shaping our fundamental laws.  They are assisted by roughly thirty-six law clerks each year, the best and brightest  of the nation's young lawyers, who routinely  go on to fill the highest ranks of our government, courts, law schools, and law firms.

Never before has one of these clerks stepped forward to reveal how the Court really works--and why it often fails the country and the cause of justice. In this groundbreaking book, award-winning historian Edward Lazarus, a former clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun, guides the reader through the Court's inner sanctum, explaining as only an eyewitness can the collisions of

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0143035274
• ISBN 13: 9780143035275
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608