Administration of Justice

In Democracy in America (1835) the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville interpreted American society through the lens of democratic political theory. A half-century later the Scotsman James Bryce examined "the institutions and the people of America as they are." Bryce presented his findings in The American Commonwealth, first published in London in three volumes in 1888. This new Liberty Fund two-volume edition is based on the updated third edition of 1941, which encompassed all the changes, corrections, and additions that Bryce entered into the previous editions. Its expanded appendix includes Bryce's 1887 essay, "The Predictions of Hamilton and De Tocqueville," and contemporaneous (1889) reviews of The American Commonwealth by Woodrow Wilson and Lord Acton. The great merit of Bryce's work is that it is based on close observation of the actual operation of American political institutions, including political parties and municipal and state governments. Consequently, Bryce provides what Professor Gary McDowell describes as "a grand atlas of American politics and society." Indeed, Bryce was able to discern enduring characteristics of American society and politics. Therefore, as Robert Nisbet has written, "we still go to Bryce for piquant and cogent answers to the questions of why great men are not chosen presidents and why the best men do not go into politics in America." James Bryce (1838-1922) was a British jurist, historian, and statesman. From 1907 to 1913 he was England's ambassador to the United States. Gary L. McDowell is the Tyler Haynes Interdisciplinary Professor of Leadership Studies, Political Science, and Law at the University of Richmond in Virginia. From 1992 to 2003 he was the Director of the Institute of United States Studies in the University of London. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

A prominent lawyer and legal scholar describes her vision of an evolving Constitution, examining current legal issues that range from health care to gun control. Pamela S. Karlan is a unique figure in American law. A professor at Stanford Law School and former counsel for the NAACP, she has argued seven cases at the Supreme Court and worked on dozens more as a clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun. In her first book written for a general audience, she examines what happens in American courtrooms--especially the Supreme Court--and what it means for our everyday lives and to our national commitments to democracy, justice, and fairness. Through an exploration of current hot-button legal issues--from voting rights to the death penalty, health care, same-sex marriage, invasive high-tech searches, and gun control--Karlan makes a sophisticated and resonant case for her vision of the Constitution. At the heart of that vision is the conviction that the Constitution is an evolving document that enables government to solve novel problems and expand the sphere of human freedom. As skeptics charge congressional overreach on such issues as the Affordable Care Act and even voting rights, Karlan pushes back. On individual rights in particular, she believes the Constitution allows Congress to enforce the substance of its amendments. And she calls out the Roberts Court for its disdain for the other branches of government and for its alignment with a conservative agenda.

Unique among Western democracies in refusing to eradicate the death penalty, the United States has attempted instead to reform and rationalize state death penalty practices through federal constitutional law. Courting Death traces the unusual and distinctive history of top-down judicial regulation of capital punishment under the Constitution and its unanticipated consequences for our time. In the 1960s and 1970s, in the face of widespread abolition of the death penalty around the world, provisions for capital punishment that had long fallen under the purview of the states were challenged in federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened in two landmark decisions, first by constitutionally invalidating the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia (1972) on the grounds that it was capricious and discriminatory, followed four years later by restoring it in Gregg v. Georgia (1976). Since then, by neither retaining capital punishment in unfettered form nor abolishing it outright, the Supreme Court has created a complex regulatory apparatus that has brought executions in many states to a halt, while also failing to address the problems that led the Court to intervene in the first place. While execution chambers remain active in several states, constitutional regulation has contributed to the death penalty's new fragility. In the next decade or two, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker argue, the fate of the American death penalty is likely to be sealed by this failed judicial experiment. Courting Death illuminates both the promise and pitfalls of constitutional regulation of contentious social issues.

In each chapter of Issues and Controversies in Policing Today, author Johnny Nhan explores a provocative issue sure to spark classroom discussion. Grounding each topic in theory, recent published research, and practice, he focuses on providing students with an understanding of its underlying causes. Moreover, a theoretical arc contextualizes the issues historically, facilitating a clear view of the ever-changing policing landscape. Used as a stand-alone text or as a companion to other material, Issues and Controversies in Policing Today offers all readers valuable insight into policing's current challenges and their origins.

The supreme court under Chief Justice Earl Warren was the most revolutionary and controversial supreme court in American history. But in what sense? challenging the reigning consensus that the Warren Court, fundamentally, was protecting minorities, Lucas Powe revives the valuable tradition of looking at the supreme court in the wide political environment to find the Warren Court a functioning partner in Kennedy-Johnson liberalism. Thus the court helped to impose national liberal-elite values on groups that were outliners to that tradition - the white south, rural America, and areas of Roman Catholic dominance.