The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States [Hardcover]

Kermit L. Hall (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0195176618 | ISBN-13: 978-0195176612 | Edition: 2

The Supreme Court has continued to write constitutional history over the thirteen years since publication of the highly acclaimed first edition of The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court. Two new justices have joined the high court, more than 800 cases have been decided, and a good deal of new scholarship has appeared on many of the topics treated in the Companion. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist presided over the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, and the Court as a whole played a decisive and controversial role in the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. Under Rehnquists's leadership, a bare majority of the justices have rewritten significant areas of the law dealing with federalism, sovereign immunity, and the commerce power.

This new edition includes new entries on key cases and fully updated treatment of crucial areas of constitutional law, such as abortion, freedom of religion, school desegregation, freedom of speech, voting rights, military tribunals, and the rights of the accused. These developments make the second edition of this accessible and authoritative guide essential for judges, lawyers, academics, journalists, and anyone interested in the impact of the Court's decisions on American society.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Oxford has published a second edition of this accessible and authoritative reference to Supreme Court cases, justices, legal issues, and terminology. With 86 new articles that include biographies of Clinton appointees Ginsberg and Breyer and commentaries on Boy Scouts v. Dale, Bush v. Gore, McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, and other important cases, Oxford has brought the companion into the twenty-first century. The extra 200 pages make the book a little difficult to pull from a high shelf, but librarians and readers will find it worth the effort. New essays on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Detainee cases, and Hate speech remind us of the continuing influence of the Supreme Court in U.S. politics and in the everyday lives of its citizens. Almost 100 articles have been revised and updated, including entries on current justices, Abortion, Impeachment, Religion, and the Second Amendment.

The features that made the first edition so convenient and easy for the layperson to use remain. Each case entry includes a U.S. Reports citation, date argued, date decided, and authors of majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions. Longer entries have brief bibliographies made up predominantly of citations to books and law review articles. See and see also references are abundant but not overwhelming.

There are several appendixes, including a useful chart of Supreme Court justices and their years of service, a chronology of the justices' succession, and a list of "Trivia and Traditions of the Court." The volume concludes with case-name and topical indexes.

The companion will likely find its way to most of the 2,800-plus libraries that have the first edition. Its value as a quick reference source on the Supreme Court has not diminished with the passage of time. It still belongs in every library, high school and up. Jan Lewis
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"This obviously impressive and highly needed collection of over 1000 entries on the Supreme Court is sure to become the standard in the field....This fine volume is a must-have collection for any serious student of the court. Highly recommended."--Library Journal

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (May 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195176618
• ISBN-13: 978-0195176612
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.4 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > Law > Administrative Law > Federal Jurisdiction

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A companion readers can't do without, August 15, 2005

By 

Mark Klobas (Tempe, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (Hardcover)

Since its initial publication in 1992, The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States has served as a valuable resource on the history of the Court. With articles on the justices, their key decisions, legal philosophies, and even aspects of Court life, the Companion has been an indispensable addition for anyone interested in American law or the history of the Court.

With the passage of time, though, the need for an update taking into account subsequent cases and topics has only grown. This need has now been met with the second edition, which includes new articles on a variety of topics, and revision of many of the earlier ones. While a few mistakes were missed (the entry on Supreme Court clerks, for example, was not updated to include Stephen Breyer among the names of the justices who previously served as clerks) and while the bibliographies at the end of each article have only been indifferently updated (while the entry on William O. Douglas includes Bruce Allen Murphy's recent biography, the one on Benjamin Cardozo includes neither of the important books written about him over the past decade), the overall result is a work of continuing utility for readers and scholars alike.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy companion, September 29, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (Hardcover)

As the nation prepares to welcome the seventeenth Chief Justice, this book is a wonderful guide to the processes of the least 'media-exposed' branch of the federal government and its highest institution, the Supreme Court.

This book has many handy features for researchers and general enthusiasts. There are brief biographies - personal, professional and judicial - of each of the Chief Justices and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court (there have been 108 in all, with 113 appointments, as 5 Associate Justices have later been appointed as Chief Justice) together with pictures of each. There are synopses of over 400 of the most pivotal cases in the history of the Supreme Court (Marbury v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, even Bush v. Gore from the year 2000) - each of these cases is presented with voting record (who wrote the opinion, who concurred, who dissented, and who wrote additional opinions) as well as the pertinent issues in the cases and the implications of the decisions.

This is a very comprehensive guide. There are essays on key issues that are very thorough - for example, the essay on 'Federalism' is an eleven page entry that includes general political principles as well as court work. There are essays on each Article of the Constitution as well as each of the Amendments. One of the longest entries is the essay on 'History of the Court', subdivided into major chronological sections - this is one of the best, brief encapsulations of the history of the high court and how it is has made an impacted (and in turn been influenced by) society that I have read. There are also entries on the physical structures of the court - the essay on the building gives an historical overview of where and in what setting the court has met, and minor entries include features of the current building (for example, there is a short entry entitled 'Barber Shop', which talks about the facility for Justices and male employees of the court to get a haircut - it mentions nothing of where O'Connor, Ginsburg or the female court employees might get their hair done). One also learns that there is a basketball court in the gymnasium of the Supreme Court, but that basketball is prohibited while the court is in session, as the dribbling balls can be heard in the court chamber.

There are also entries on key judicial concepts. The concept of Constitutional Interpretation is something that many people take for granted, but is in fact an continually changing methodology. There are Common Law concepts such as the Writ of Mandamus and Writ of Certiorari (each have an entry) as well as the more structured Writ of Habeas Corpus. One also discovers here that 'Mootness' is a word.

There are several appendices that are also handy features. The first appendix, appropriately, is the full text of the Constitution. The second appendix lays out the nominations, terms and succession of the Justices in several ways, including an interesting graphical representation organised alongside presidential terms, as well another chronology that shows number of days without a full court appointed (when we imagine that a few months is a long time to go in the nomination and approval process, we can see that from 1843 to 1846, there were 965 days without a full court).

For trivia buffs, appendix three is a fun piece - there is a listing of the trivia and traditions of the court, divided into 'Firsts' and more general 'Trivia'. Too bad it doesn't list why Chief Justice Rehnquist wore stripes on his sleeves as Chief Justice! Perhaps that is an update for the third edition.

This is a book with great information, as well as a good deal of spirit and wit. It is a valuable addition to any library.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Massive tome on the Supreme Court., October 7, 2005

By 

zonaras (Jimbo's House of Pie) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (Hardcover)

_The Oxford Companion to the United States Supreme Court of the United States_ (Kermit Hall, ed.) is a massive tome containing a vast swath of information: cases, traditions, theories of constitutional interpretations, historical events, and biographies of all of the Supreme Court Justices. It has the same material (word for word) as Kermit Hall's _The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions_ but this is much more worthwhile reference work because it contains more contextual material than the cases themselves. This book is by no means exhaustive, but it provides a very informative overview of what the Supreme Court has been up to for the past two hundred years and the very different personalities serving on the body.