Tom S. Clark - Böcker

This book investigates the causes and consequences of congressional attacks on the US Supreme Court, arguing that the extent of public support for judicial independence constitutes the practical limit of judicial independence. First, the book presents a historical overview of Court-curbing proposals in Congress. Then, building on interviews with Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and judicial and legislative staffers, the book theorizes that congressional attacks are driven by public discontent with the Court. From this theoretical model, predictions are derived about the decision to engage in Court-curbing and judicial responsiveness to Court-curbing activity in Congress. The Limits of Judicial Independence draws on illustrative archival evidence, systematic analysis of an original dataset of Court-curbing proposals introduced in Congress from 1877 onward and judicial decisions.

This book investigates the causes and consequences of congressional attacks on the US Supreme Court, arguing that the extent of public support for judicial independence constitutes the practical limit of judicial independence. First, the book presents a historical overview of Court-curbing proposals in Congress. Then, building on interviews with Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and judicial and legislative staffers, the book theorizes that congressional attacks are driven by public discontent with the Court. From this theoretical model, predictions are derived about the decision to engage in Court-curbing and judicial responsiveness to Court-curbing activity in Congress. The Limits of Judicial Independence draws on illustrative archival evidence, systematic analysis of an original dataset of Court-curbing proposals introduced in Congress from 1877 onward and judicial decisions.

A groundbreaking study of when, where, and whom police shoot in America’s largest cities Police shootings in America spark outrage and protest and raise questions about police use of lethal force. Yet despite the attention given to high-profile shootings, it is extremely difficult to draw wider conclusions about the frequency and outcomes of police gunfire because there is no systematic and centralized source of information on these incidents. This pioneering book draws on original data, compiled by the authors, to examine police shootings, both fatal and non-fatal, in hundreds of American cities. It documents racial disparities in shooting incidents and shows that the media spotlight on the most shocking fatal shootings tell only part of the story of police gunfire in our cities.The authors find that there are patterns in when, where, and whom the police shoot, and they present strong evidence of unjustifiable disparities. It’s not just that young, unarmed Black men are disproportionately subjected to gunfire during encounters with police officers; there is also a disproportionate concentration of shootings in the places where most Black and Hispanic urbanites live, even accounting for violent crime rates and other factors. As a consequence, Black and Hispanic residents of large cities are disproportionately exposed to police gunfire, even when they are not themselves the targets of it. The authors offer other insights as well, exploring the connection between police department funding and rates of shootings, and considering the influence of a city’s political leadership on police use of gunfire. It is only through a deeper understanding of police shootings, the authors argue, that we can reduce their incidence and make effective reform possible.

This book presents a quantitative history of constitutional law in the United States and brings together humanistic and social-scientific approaches to studying law. Using theoretical models of adjudication, Tom S. Clark presents a statistical model of law and uses the model to document the historical development of constitutional law. Using sophisticated statistical methods and historical analysis of court decisions, the author documents how social and political forces shape the path of law. Spanning the history of constitutional law since Reconstruction, this book illustrates the way in which the law evolves with American life and argues that a social-scientific approach to the history of law illuminates connections across disparate areas of the law, connected by the social context in which the Constitution has been interpreted.