Customer Reviews

Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Lazarus, who clerked for Justice Blackmun during the 1988-89 term, has written a behind-the-scenes look at the court and its decisions during that term. He focuses on abortion and capital punishment cases; somewhat surprisingly, he doesn't discuss the growth of "federalism." His overall thesis is that the overpoliticization of the Supreme Court nomination process, as exemplified by Bork's rejection, has resulted in a deep split between liberals and conservatives on the court, with the outcome in the control of Justices O'Connor and Kennedy, both of whom are too much subject to the influence of their clerks, especially a well-organized, highly partisan group of conservative clerks.

The book combines the clerk-driven content of "The Brethren" with documentary evidence from the Thurgood Marshall papers and a more sophisticated analysis of the legal issues. It provides a more complete view of Chief Justice Rehnquist's work style and why he has been so much more effective than Chief Justice Burger at effectuating the conservative legal agenda. It shows how the troubling developments of that period, such as the cert pool, have grown into monsters. It looks briefly at the newest justices (Thomas, Ginsberg, Breyer) and accurately characterizes Ginsberg so as to explain her frequent alliance with Rehnquist.

The book, despite its publicity, tells no tales out of school. It is much less chatty than "The Brethren." Its tone follows Justice Blackmun into sentimentality. With news reports missing or giving less space to the ideological battles occasionally revealed by the court's decisions, lay followers of the court should make a point of reading this book.

Given that a fairly large number of my classmates at Harvard had high aspirations of clerking on the Supreme Court, it was always surprising to me that none of them had read this book. Reading through the (often unfair) reviews here, it is not surprising why.

Several complaints of Lazarus' 'unfair' attitudes are evinced: Lazarus focuses on abortion, discrimination, and death penalty 'snapshots' from a legal historical perspective then turns to the inner workings of the court.

Shallower readers more interested in Grisham or other fiction might object to Lazarus' description of the Scottsboro case: a legal reader wouldn't begin trying to understand death penalty litigation without that critical starting point. Lazarus describes death penalty obstructionists as dueling with death penalty hawks - such as law clerks who threw parties when executions were carried out, while Marshall/Brennan clerks conducted vigils.

After Woodward/Armstrong's scathing reviews of Blackmun in 'The Brethren,' one cannot fault Lazarus for striving to resuscitate Blackmun's career. After all, the man read deeply, thought profoundly, and cared tremendously about his legacy (which comes down, for better or worse, to Roe v. Wade).

And this drives the large number of deprecatory reviews: people who hate Roe v. Wade will hate anything written about Blackmun with the slightest degree of fairness, deriding the author unfairly and underscoring his claims that closed, prejudiced (or at least, pre-judged) minds dominate, and only a few are willing to stand up to them.

Particularly telling is the origin of the 'centrist' coalition - O'Connor, Kennedy, and temporarily, Souter - which stood against Marshall/Brennan/Stephens (the liberal wing) and Rehnquist/Scalia (the conservative wing).

All of which is dull, tiresome reading for those looking for journalistic treatments of wheeling and dealing. Those looking for such writing should turn to Woodward/Armstrong's 'The Brethren.' Those looking for more informed history should turn to Morton Horwitz's treatises.

But for understanding the role of a clerk - the power and limits - as well as precious insights into Blackmun, an enigmatic jurist unloved by liberals or conservatives, and to read these treatments along with concise, and quite balanced legal history - this is a fine book.

I approached CLOSED CHAMBERS in response to hearing that a Supreme Court Clerk--a coveted one-year position as assistant to the Justices gained by a handful of top law graduates each year--had written a book about the experience and the Court reacted by tightening its rules. Instead of scandal, however, in CLOSED CHAMBERS I found a profound analysis of burning legal questions, primarily the death penalty and abortion. The author does not use the clerk's vantage point to sully the reputation of the Court or to give the impression of arbitrariness in the process by which the Supreme Court reaches its decisions. This unique perspective is used to show the reader the human side of the process, and show how the democratic decisions of the electorate came to influence policy through the persons that the elected, mostly Republican, Presidents could get approved by the mostly Democratic Senate. Of course, this seems genuinely interesting to me, because I realize the unavoidably subjective and political nature of much legal decision-making. Others might see the same text as debasing the sanctity of the objectivity of the law. The decisions of the Supreme Court have not been considered objective application of the law' in many decades--but, yes, the few who might read CLOSED CHAMBERS believing in objective application of the law might be surprised to find acknowledgment of subjectivity, here as in practically every other book about law written in the last 100 years.

The book offers little, if any, gossip and much legal reasoning. The history of the death penalty litigation occupies the greater part of the book, and is given in rich historical detail. Somewhat less time is spent on abortion, but the analysis there is even stronger--perhaps because the author does not overextend his arguments in reaction to the outcome.

The outcome in the death penalty litigation is that the Supreme Court has not only considered the death penalty proper from the perspective of constitutional law, but has also curtailed the appeals process, has approved 'victim impact statements', and has accepted the disproportional application of the death penalty. All this runs strongly against the author's beliefs and sense of justice. His response is to document each expansion of the application of the death penalty extensively and to make it appear as a morally contra-indicated political decision. While I agree that it is a political decision, I cannot see that any argument based on 'objective legal reasoning' could be made either way. The content of the Constitution's 'cruel and unusual' punishment clause is defined by the Supreme Court, and the electorate who elected a string of tough-on-crime, Republican Presidents, caused the definition of 'cruel and unusual' to not preclude the death penalty. While this may contravene the sense of morality of a large minority, it is the result of persistent democratic will, which is well nigh unassailable. The political Left would be well advised to accept the majority's decision and avoid squandering political capital on a closed issue.

The author's strongest argument against the death penalty is based on statistical evidence. The death penalty is imposed more frequently if the victim is Caucasian than if the victim is African American. From this, the author concludes that prosecutorial discretion drives the difference. This would mean that prosecutors are racially biased, the same way as an employer with disproportionate hiring biases. But that is not necessarily the case. My view is that the disparity is consistent with the acceptance of victim impact statements. Juries and more generally the criminal justice system should impose different penalties for different harms to society. The statistics and the victim impact statements suggest that juries adjust deterrence by the social harm and the disruption caused by different murders. The identity of the victim matters for the degree of disruption suffered by a society and for its deterrence. It is telling that the statistical study shows that the racia bias diminishes (without disappearing) when all factors are included in the multiple regression.

With this caveat that the book wails a bit much about the death penalty, its analysis is extraordinarily appealing. The reader gets history, law, facts, the social environment between the Justices and the clerks at a politically charged time. The legal scene of the eighties and early nineties is transmitted as high drama.

Then, just as dramatically, the author produces the same synthesis for abortion. After the fall of the liberal cause in the case of the death penalty, the book's abortion narrative is truly suspenseful. Still, the author shares the resentment of the left at the restrictions placed on reproductive freedom and its unequal availability, as a result of the Supreme Court's upholding of federal and state refusal to finance abortions. In the abortion segment of the book, the analysis is stronger. In addition to the privacy concern, the author reveals the much more recent and persuasive argument--and an argument that appears to be the author's own--that abortion is not only about privacy but also about equality between the sexes. A policy that forces the gestation of embryos burdens women but not men. Only women must give their body, time, and freedom. The recent statistical findings of Donahue and { that legalized abortion reduced the crime of offspring without reducing the number of children that women had, adds a crucial additional argument that has recently surfaced.

To conclude, CLOSED CHAMBERS is a fascinatingly thoughtful book, a rivetingly dramatic account of a tumultuous period of the legal history of the nation. If you are interested in these legal battles, you will love the book.

It is about time that someone brings sunlight to the inner workings of the Supreme Court. In spite of his decidedly liberal political leanings, Lazarus provides an objective look at the inner workings of the supreme court circa 1988. Lazarus does an excellent job of showing how the polarization of the Court has been detrimental to the pursuit of justice, just as the polarization of Congress has been detrimental to the legislative process.

Although non-lawyers may find his writing a bit technical, particularly on esoteric legal issues, they will nonetheless appreciate his candid views on the justices' decisionmaking process.

And finally a challange to the critics who believe that Lazarus has betrayed his employer: Please explain why we are not entitled to know how the highest court in the land makes its decisions. Congress has public hearings that are broadcast on CSPAN. The President receives more media attention than any other person in the world (absent the late Princess Di) and his minions will write dozens of tell-all books after he leaves office. Why should the Court be exempt from scrutiny? If the justices are embarassed then maybe they should change their ways.

This book is noteworthy for 3 reasons: 1) There is surprisingly little written on the inner workings of the SC and this book provides a good deal of detail about it; 2) It provides stellar insights into the characters of the Justices themselves--something largely unknown even though they are arguably the most powerful people in the nation; and 3) It marks the court at a time where it was at its most volatile and subject to the greatest change with 5 Reagan-Bush appointees changing the makeup and direction of the court within a short period.

It does largely take a more liberal view of the issues. I can look past that since he does the conservatives justice by elaborating on their perspective and how they perceive the issues based on their legal philosphies and the book is fair about it. Also, since he was on the side of the aged, liberal guard, it makes only sense his perspective would be skewed by his position, which he is not afraid to admit. However, he does take a sort of middle ground approach bridging the gap between the neo-conservative justices (Scalia, Rehnquist) and the old libs of Brennan and Marshall.

Its a good book. Its not great. But given the lack of other books on the subject with as much inside information, it definitely is one worth reading. If you are interested in the law at all, take abortion or death penalty issues seriously, or just want to know how the SC operates, this book will not disappoint.

Mr. Lazarus' command of the legal implications of several decades of Supreme Court decisions is excellent. Extremely well-researched, brave, eloquent and incisive. I recommend this book to all legal professionals and anyone interested in critical legal thought and its social implications. I especially benefited from the author's discussion of the death penalty cases and his deft efforts at making sense of them. He is able to explain the highly complex reasoning of many Supreme Court decisions without sacrificing, like many authors, by "dumbing" down the explications.

I agree with most of what the other reveiwers have written about this book. It is a very well-written and accessible account of the Supreme Court and its development in recent times. As another reviewer mentioned, Mr. Lazarus is honest about his liberal views and biases, and he is quite clear about which of his observations are accurate historical accounts and which are colored by his poilitical view. I found the book to be enjoyable and informative, and to contain some good basic explanations of how the Supreme Court works.

Closed Chambers is highly entertaining and gracefully written, but it is not for the average reader. Lazarus discusses so many cases and jurists that it's hard to keep track of everything. This is especially true about the death penalty section of the book, which is by far the most tedious. This is why I gave it 4 stars and not 5.

Let me dispell some things that have been said in other Amazon reviews of this book. There are no totally unbiased historians, and if there were, they would be too boring to read. Lazarus makes his moderate-to-liberal judicial leanings clear, but without question, he offers sharp criticism of both sides of the Supreme Court aisle, as it were. Although he is undoubtedly critical of Rehnquist (who he considers exceptionally dishonest), Kennedy (who he sees as unprincipled and inconsistent), and Thomas (who he derides for his lack of qualification as well as his disrespect for court institutions), he is also quite critical of Brennan (who he characterizes as pathetically grasping at the straws of a bygone era), Marshall (who he thinks was extremely feebleminded at the end of his life), and the modern-day "liberal" judicial establishment in general (which he characterizes as hypocritical for many many reasons). Lazarus has a lot of respect for certain non-liberals, such as Scalia, who he sees as the sharpest thinker on the bench, as well as Stewart (who isn't a main character, but still). In general, he personally identifies less with the Warren court and more with a Harlan-esque judicial strategy, shying away from big sweeping rulings and instead favoring cautiously incremental changes. As for his favorite justices, he obviously holds Harlan in high regard, as he does Souter.

More than anything, Lazarus advocates a Supreme Court where reasoning plays a larger role than results, a Court that stands above the frey of politics. He calls out both liberals and conservatives as hypocrites in this vein. Although the conservatives bear more of his rage, this is because 1) most justices over the period he details have been conservatives and 2) he clerked for Blackmun, for whom he obviously has a lot of respect and empathy and personal friendship.

Many of the reviewers on this site appear to have not read Closed Chambers either attentively or at all. To call this book a leftist diatribe is to totally miss the point. Lazarus is certainly opinionated, but his opinions are only mildly political. Great book.

Mr. Lazarus is a liberal. Refreshingly, he freely admits this, and, when recounting his time on the court as Justice Blackmun's clerk, candidly describes his personal feelings about the cases on which he worked.

At the same time, Mr. Lazarus takes pains to point out the shortcomings of both liberal and conservative decisions, criticizing both ideological camps. Moreover, Mr. Lazarus also attempts to explain how both liberals and conservatives could have used different, and in his view, more legally defensible arguments for their decisions.

It is unusual in this age of constant partisan bickering to find an author who attempts to fairly characterize the shortcomings on both sides. For this reason alone, the book is a breath of fresh air when compared to other books in this genre, which attempt only to justify the arguments of one side or another. Despite his biases, Mr. Lazarus has made an honorable attempt to present an honest critique.

More importantly, Mr. Lazarus illustrates what I believe to be the most important issue before the court today, which is the predilection for both liberal and conservative judges to decide cases based on their personal views, and then attempt to justify the decisions after the fact by using whatever convenient legal arguments happen to lie at hand.

For the Court to be effective, and its decisions respected over the long term, justices on both sides of the ideological divide must scrupulously adhere to rigorous legal reasoning, and must be willing, on the basis of that reasoning, to join opinions that may conflict with their personal philosophies.

The Supreme Court is supposed to be a temple of the law, not just another political branch of the government. Unless the Justices realize this, and act accordingly, they will squander their remaining respect among the American people. Additionally, the calls that have already been made to amend the Constitution to reduce the Court's independence will continue to gather support.

Mr. Lazarus makes these arguments convincingly and fairly. Both liberals and conservatives who are concerned about the court should think carefully about these issues. Mr. Lazarus' book is a good start.

The Supreme Court is supposed to be a place where the finest legal minds/scholars of the Constitution rule on the ultimate validity of a laws' application, a new laws' legitimacy, and whether or not it adheres to the Constitution that is meant to govern our nation. Like many grand institutions it can no longer be counted on to deliver blind justice to our Nation. As very public events of only 24 hours ago demonstrate, it is as partisan, and bi-polar as any other political forum. I am not suggesting this is a novelty with the current court, rather they have allowed themselves to deteriorate as a functioning unit, into the same fractured groups that are pleading their own self interested views of the law before them.

When I first read this book I was surprised by the conduct of many of the court members. I know this sounds naive, however I had held on to the idea that Justices appointed for life, men and woman who had risen as far as they ever could, would bring all their expertise, and over time leave some of their prejudices behind. I thought that the junior members of the Court would respect legal legends in this Country like Justice Thurgood Marshall and his peers. Not automatically defer to them, but not openly disdain them either.

Mr. Edward Lazarus is not the first to write on this topic, but he was inside the Court. If only a portion of the occurrences he describes took place, the court is as partisan as Congress.

The role that Law Clerks play, and the impact they can have are obscene. Regardless of their academic performance and the potential they may hold, that is still only what they are, very junior novices that lack the decades of experience of those they should be serving. Their influence on a decision should be nil. That the justices allow themselves to be influenced by efficient clerks is appalling.

This book is readable by the layperson, however those with a legal background will certainly gain more from it. It is also true that not every source is identified, but I do not believe much of this information would be shared on the record by anyone who planned to remain in his or her position in government. This allowance having been made, this book will inform you, and either confirm what you knew, or dishearten the reader. The last several days have made this book, and others like it, critically important.

As the recent continuing election has demonstrated beyond any dispute, candidates confuse their egos with The Nations' Best Interest. They place themselves before and above those they pretend they wish to serve. Their political careers are limited, but that is no defense for their infantile, selfish behavior.

The Justices of the Supreme Court have no term limit to use as an excuse or justification for their conduct; as they may hold their places until they are carried from the building as inert as the system they do not serve.