Empirical Legal Studies

New Book - Roosevelt on Judicial Activism

The Myth of Judicial Activism: Making Sense of Supreme Court Decisions

by Kermit Roosevelt (Yale University Press)

Availability: Amazon / B&N / Yale

From the Description: “This carefully considered book is a welcome addition to the debate over ‘judicial activism.’ Constitutional scholar Kermit Roosevelt III offers an elegantly simple way to resolve the heated discord between conservatives, who argue that the Constitution is immutable, and progressives, who insist that it is a living document that must be reinterpreted in new cultural contexts so that its meaning evolves. Roosevelt uses plain language and compelling examples to explain how the Constitution can be both a constant and an organic document.”

State Court Organization, 2004

A treasure-trove of data and information on our state court systems is contained in the recently-released State Court Organization, 2004.  Moreover, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) makes available much of the source-data in user-friendly formats.

According to the good folks at BJS, the publication "presents detailed comparative data by State trial and appellate courts in the United States. Topics covered include: the number of courts and judges; process for judicial selection; governance of court systems, including judicial funding, administration, staffing, and procedures; jury qualifications and verdict rules; and processing and sentencing procedures for criminal cases. Diagrams of court structure summarize the key features of each State's court organization."

New Book - Mann & Ornstein on Congress

The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track
by Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein (Oxford)

Availability: Amazon / B&N / Oxford

From the Description:

"Mann and Ornstein, two of the nations most renowned and judicious scholars of government and politics, bring to light the historical roots of Congresss current maladies, examining 40 years of uninterrupted Democratic control of the House and the stunning midterm election victory of 1994 that propelled Republicans into the majority in both House and Senate. The byproduct of that long and grueling but ultimately successful Republican campaign, the authors reveal, was a weakened institution bitterly divided between the parties. They highlight the dramatic shift in Congress from a highly decentralized, committee-based institution into a much more regimented one in which party increasingly trumps committee. The resultant changes in the policy process--the demise of regular order, the decline of deliberation, and the weakening of our system of checks and balances--have all compromised the role of Congress in the American Constitutional system. Indeed, Speaker Dennis Hastert has unabashedly stated that his primary responsibility is to pass the president's legislative program--identifying himself more as a lieutenant of the president than a steward of the house. From tax cuts to the war against Saddam Hussein to a Medicare prescription drug benefit, the legislative process has been bent to serve immediate presidential interests and have often resulted in poorly crafted and stealthily passed laws. Strong majority leadership in Congress, the authors conclude, led not to a vigorous exertion of congressional authority but to a general passivity in the face of executive power."

New Book - Graber on Dred Scott

Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil
by Mark Graber (Cambridge University Press)

Availability: Amazon / B&N / Cambridge

From the Description:

"An examination of what is entailed by pledging allegiance to a constitutional text and tradition saturated with concessions to evil. The Constitution of the United States was originally understood as an effort to mediate controversies between persons who disputed fundamental values, and did not offer a vision of good society. In order to form a 'more perfect union' with slaveholders, late eighteenth century citizens fashioned a constitution that plainly compelled some injustices and was silent or ambiguous on other questions of fundamental right. This constitutional relationship could survive only as long as a bisectional consensus was required to resolve all constitutional questions not settled in 1787. Dred Scott challenges persons committed to human freedom to determine whether antislavery northerners should have provided more accommodations for slavery than were constitutionally strictly necessary or risked the enormous destruction of life and property that preceded Lincoln's new birth of freedom."

New Book - Elkin on Constitutional Design

Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Design After Madison

by Stephen L. Elkin (Univ. of Chicago Press)

Availability: Amazon / Barnes & Noble /
U. of C. Press

From the Description:

"James Madison is the thinker most responsible for laying the groundwork of the American commercial republic. But he did not anticipate that the propertied class on which he relied would become extraordinarily politically powerful at the same time as its interests narrowed. This and other flaws, argues Stephen L. Elkin, have undermined the delicately balanced system he constructed. In Reconstructing the Commercial Republic, Elkin critiques the Madisonian system, revealing which of its aspects have withstood the test of time and which have not.

The deficiencies Elkin points out provide the starting point for his own constitutional theory of the republic—a theory that, unlike Madison’s, lays out a substantive conception of the public interest that emphasizes the power of institutions to shape our political, economic, and civic lives. Elkin argues that his theory should guide us toward building a commercial republic that is rooted in a politics of the public interest and the self-interest of the middle class. He then recommends specific reforms to create this kind of republic, asserting that Americans today can still have the lives a commercial republic is intended to promote: lives with real opportunities for economic prosperity, republican political self-government, and individual liberty."

New Book - Schofield on Political Change

Architects of Political Change: Constitutional Quandaries and Social Choice Theory

by Norman Schofield (Cambridge University Press)

Availability: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

From the Description:

 

"This work offers a set of extended interpretations of Madison's argument in Federalist X of 1787, using ideas from social choice theory and from the work of Douglass North, Mancur Olson, and William Riker. Its focus is not on rational choice theory itself, but on the use of this theory as a heuristic device to better understand democratic institutions. The treatment adapts a formal model of elections to consider rapid constitutional change at periods when societies face quandaries. The topics explored in the book include Britain's reorganization of its fiscal system in the eighteenth century to prosecute its wars with France; the Colonies' decision to declare independence in 1776; Madison's argument about the 'probability of fit choice' during the Ratification period of 1787-88; the argument between Hamilton and Jefferson in 1798 1800 over the long run organization of the US economy and the election of Lincoln in 1860."

New Book - The Founders & Guns

A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America

by Saul Cornell (Oxford University Press)

Availability: The Oxford website lists it as an August 2006 book, but it is available now. (Barnes & Noble's release date seems to be incorrect too.)

See Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

From the Description:

"Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. "

New Book - Game Theory & the High Court

Institutional Games and the U.S. Supreme Court
Edited by James R. Rogers, Roy B. Flemming, and Jon R. Bond
(University of Virginia Press)

Available: Approximately Today

Contributors: Kenneth A. Shepsle, Andrew De Martin, James R. Rogers, Christopher Zorn, Georg Vanberg, Cliff Carrubba, Thomas Hammond, Christopher Bonneau, Reginald Sheehan, Charles Cameron, Lewis A. Kornhauser, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Matthew Stephenson, Stefanie A. Lindquist, Susan D. Haire, and Lawrence Baum

From the Description:

Over the course of the past decade, the behavioral analysis of decisions by the Supreme Court has turned to game theory to gain new insights into this important institution in American politics. Game theory highlights the role of strategic interactions between the Court and other institutions in the decisions the Court makes as well as in the relations among the justices as they make their decisions. Rather than assume that the justices’ votes reveal their sincere preferences, students of law and politics have come to examine how the strategic concerns of the justices lead to sophisticated behavior as they seek to maximize achievement of their goals when faced with constraints on their ability to do so…. James Rogers, Roy Flemming, and Jon Bond gather various essays that use game theory to explain the Supreme Court's interactions with Congress, the states, and the lower courts. Offering new ways of understanding the complexity and consequences of these interactions, the volume joins a growing body of work that considers these influential interactions among various branches of the U.S. government.

 

New Book - History of the N.Y. Court of Appeals

The History of the New York Court of Appeals, 1932-2003

by Bernard S. Meyer, Burton C. Agata, and Seth H. Agata (Columbia University Press)

This is volume II in the series. Volume I covers 1847 to 1932.

The current availability of this book is unclear. Barnes & Noble reports that it is available now. Amazon says it's not but that it should be. Columbia's website says July. At $85.00, it's probably more of a library book anyway.

New Book - Minority Rights in Asia

Minority Rights in Asia: A Comparative Legal Analysis
by Joshua Castellino & Elvira Dominguez Redondo (Oxford 2006)

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Asian States, International Human Rights Law, and Minority Rights
2. Minority Rights in India
3. Minority Rights in China
4. Minority Rights in Malaysia
5. Minority Rights in Singapore
6. Conclusion