Customer Reviews

Laboratory of Justice: The Supreme Court's 200-Year Struggle to Integrate Science and the Law

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thought this book was going to focus on what the subtitle says but chunks of it is really just a discussion of a summary of various basic constitutional topics as such without specific focus on scientific matters. The book doesn't even have a chapter focused on the scientific concerns of the criminal justice system (such as what evidence is accepted, mental illness issues, eyewitness testimony, etc.). The chapter on privacy focuses as much on doctrine than focusing on the actual science involved in life and death issues.

Also, "laboratory" is not what many would think of when reading something that the book takes significant time addressing, that is basically the social science and legal theory aspects focused on the chapters about Holmes and a to my mind too long (particularly for a book of this sort) introduction spelling out the Federalist v. Antifederalist stance on the Constitution. I realize that social SCIENCE is involved here and it was helpful to discuss the different views of human nature involved pursuant to each side's views but it was not handled that well.

There seemed to be too much history and legal analysis that crowded out what the title of this book suggests this book would actually be about. Also, I repeatedly found errors, some just annoying -- how can a law professor, e.g., have the famous Carolene Products case come AFTER WWII began? Another case has Harlan saying something when the case cited occurred after he died. I just cite these as examples. Then, there are various comments or asides, like some case "all agree" opened a "very slippery slope" which is just not true or the rather curious idea that Taney would have been not seen as that horrible if he ONLY stopped with his comments on blacks. As to his "bigotry," his territory discussion in Dred Scott is not really what people now care about. The book also ignores that there actually was a big push even in Congress to have that matter decided in the courts, Congress opening up the way to accelerated review on the matter of slave ownership in the territories growing out of the Mexican War. If the book didn't spend so much time on legal theory, this sort of thing would perhaps be not as bad.

I gave the book three stars because it did have various interesting discussions regarding scientific matters, including the use of social science data in cases such as affirmative action and death penalty cases. Some history there is useful, so the problems cited above is a matter of degree, not necessary of kind. I wish it focused more on that type of thing than filling up so much space basically summarizing legal topics as if it was a run of the mill book on constitutional law. It could have summarized that stuff much more and spent more time on the science. As it is, the book is flawed, and you are left wanting more of what you thought the book was going to offer in the first place.

For those of us who primarily hear about Supreme Court cases through the news or at school, it is easy to forget that the actual Court decision that emerges from a case is the complex interaction of nine individuals interpreting the law and the facts. This book explores in fascinating detail how the Supreme Court's landmark decisions are very much a human endeavor reflecting the different justices' world views. While Faigman uses the justices' understanding of science (or sometimes misunderstanding) in making their legal decisions as his primary prism to examine the Court, the book is anything but simply a "law and science" book. To me, it was much more about how the justices bring their individual strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and fears as human beings, to deciding cases with profound implications for society. I always had assumed, for example, that Justice Taney, who decided the infamous Dred Scott decision that saw slaves as property to be owned, must have been a bigoted villain. While Taney by no means emerges from Faigman's telling as a hero, he does become much more of a three-dimensional figure, one who had deep personal qualms about slavery but who, in a terribly misguided way, thought he was saving the Union by his opinion in Dred Scott. In chapter after chapter, Faigman similarly shows how Court decisions that we have all heard of, like Brown v. Board of Education, are much more than simply decisions reflecting "The Law," but reflect individual justices' struggles with changing scientific and social understandings. I don't know if the author meant the title "Laboratory of Justice" to have another meaning beyond looking at how the Court tries to adapt the law as science changes our understanding of the world around us, but as I read the book, I did find myself thinking of the justices not as the scientists running the "laboratory of justice" but as part of the experiment itself going on in the laboratory of justice. This is a superb book for anyone who wants to gain insight into the Court's workings as told by someone with a keen eye for interesting facts that are insightful and entertaining at the same time.