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What the Brit learned reading 2 books about the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Ann Althouse

He's lawyer turned columnist, Marcel Berlin:

... I had just finished reading a recent book on the Supreme Court judges: The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin. What struck me first was how impossible it would be to have such a book here. In the US the nine judges of the highest court are national news: here their equivalent, the 12 law lords, are virtually unknown outside the legal world....

Toobin looks behind the scenes of the court's decision - by a majority of 5-4 - to hand the US presidency to Bush in 2000, following the Florida voting fiasco. His account does not enhance the court's reputation. Reading it made me feel even more strongly than I had before that the case was decided by the majority on primarily political, not legal grounds.

Clarence Thomas, generally regarded as the weakest of the judges, recently published his autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, describing his upbringing as a black child in a poor family in the racist south. It should be an inspiring story. He spoils it by his bitterness, anger, egotism, and the burden of many chips on his shoulders.

Thanks for the pithy summary of your bias.

Full post as published by Althouse on February 11, 2008 (boomark / email).