David M. O'Brien – författare

Brown v. Board of Education is widely recognized as one of the US Supreme Court’s most important decisions in the twentieth century. Robert H. Jackson, an associate justice on the case, is generally considered one of the Court’s most gifted writers. Though much has been written about Brown, citing the writing and remarks of the justices who participated in the 1954 decision, comparatively little has been said about Jackson or his unpublished opinion, which is sometimes even mistakenly taken as a dissenting opinion. This book visits Brown v. Board of Education from Jackson’s perspective and, in doing so, offers a reinterpretation of the justice’s thinking, and of the Supreme Court’s decision making, in a ruling that continues to reverberate through the nation’s politics and public life.

Weaving together judicial biography, legal history, and judicial politics, Justice Robert H. Jackson’s Unpublished Opinion in Brown v. Board provides a nuanced look at constitutional interpretation, and the intersection of law and politics, from inside the mind of a justice, within the context of a Court deciding a seminal case. Through an analysis of six drafts of Jackson’s unpublished concurring opinion, David M. O’Brien explores the justice’s evolving thoughts on relevant issues at critical moments in the case. His retelling of Brown presents a new view of longstanding arguments confronted by Jackson and the other justices over “original intent” versus a “living Constitution,” the role of the Court, and social change and justice in American political life. The book includes the final draft of Jackson’s unpublished opinion, as well as the Warren Court’s opinions in Brown and in Bolling v. Sharpe, for comparison, along with a timeline of developments and decision making leading to the Court’s landmark ruling.

The Santeria religion of Cuba—the Way of the Saints—mixes West AfricanYoruba culture with Catholicism. Similar to Haitian voodoo, Santeria has long practiced animal sacrifice in certain rites. But when Cuban immigrants brought those rituals to Florida, local authorities were suddenly confronted with a controversial situation that pitted the regulation of public health and morality against religious freedom.

After Ernesto Pichardo established a Santeria church in Hialeah in the 1980s, the city of Hialeah responded by passing ordinances banning ritual animal sacrifice. Although on the surface those ordinances seemed general in intent, they were clearly aimed at Pichardo’s church. When Pichardo subsequently sued the city, a federal court ruled in the latter’s favor, in effect privileging the regulation of public health and morality over the church’s free exercise of its religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard Pichardo’s appeal in 1993 and unanimously decided that the city had overstepped its bounds in targeting this particular religious group; however, the court was sharply divided regarding the basis of its decision. Three concurring opinions registered distinctly different views of the First Amendment, the limits of government regulation, and the religious freedom of minorities. In the end, the nine justices collectively concluded that freedom of religious belief was absolute while the freedom to practice the tenets of any faith were subject to non-discriminatory local regulations.

David O’Brien, one of America’s foremost scholars of the Court, now illuminates this controversy and its significance for law, government, and religion in America. His lively account takes us behind the scenes at every stage of the litigation to reveal a riveting case with more twists and turns than a classic whodunit. Ranging with equal ease from primitive magic to municipal politics and to the most arcane points of constitutional law, O’Brien weaves a compelling and instructive tale with a fascinating array of politicians, lawyers, jurists, civil libertarians, and animal rights advocates. Offering sharp insights into the key issues and personalities, he highlights cultural clashes large and small, while maintaining a balance for both the needs of government and the religious rights of individuals.

The “Santeria case” reaffirmed that our laws must be generally applicable and neutral and may not discriminate against particular religions. Tracing the path to that conclusion, Animal Sacrifice and Religious Freedom provides a provocative and learned account of one of the most unusual and contentious religious freedom cases in American history.

"Although it almost certainly won't get much credit for it, this is a near-perfect example of that rara avis, the impartial report on a white-hot public issue. Each chapter is full of meanigful quotation and value-neutral elucidation, and each is written in a rainwater-clear prose that makes the book nonpareil for learning what, in terms of law and public policy, abortion in the U.S. is all about." – ALA Booklist