Featured Acquisitions

Justice in Robes by Ronald Dworkin
Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006
K290 .D89 2006 Balcony

How should a judge's moral convictions bear on his judgments about what the law is? Lawyers, sociologists, philosophers, politicians, and judges all have answers to that question: these range from "nothing" to "everything." In his new book Ronald Dworkin argues that the question is much more complex than it has often been taken to be and charts a variety of dimensions--semantic, jurisprudential, and doctrinal--in which law and morals are undoubtedly interwoven. He restates and summarizes his own widely discussed account of these connections, which emphasizes the sovereign importance of moral principle in legal and constitutional interpretation, and then reviews and criticizes the most influential rival theories to his own. He argues that pragmatism is empty as a theory of law, that value pluralism misunderstands the nature of moral concepts, that constitutional originalism reflects an impoverished view of the role of a constitution in a democratic society, and that contemporary legal positivism is based on a mistaken semantic theory and an erroneous account of the nature of authority. In the course of that critical study he discusses the work of many of the most influential lawyers and philosophers of the era, including Isaiah Berlin, Richard Posner, Cass Sunstein, Antonin Scalia, and Joseph Raz. Dworkin's new collection of essays and original chapters is a model of lucid, logical, and impassioned reasoning that will advance the crucially important debate about the roles of justice in law.

Sorcerers' Apprentices: 100 Years of Law Clerks at the United States Supreme Court by Artemus Ward and David L. Weiden
New York : New York University Press, c2006
KF8771 .W37 2006 Balcony

Law clerks have been a permanent fixture in the halls of the United States Supreme Court from its founding, but the relationship between clerks and their justices has generally been cloaked in secrecy. While the role of the justice is both public and formal, particularly in terms of the decisions a justice makes and the power that he or she can wield in the American political system, the clerk has historically operated behind closed doors. Do clerks make actual decisions that they impart to justices, or are they only research assistants that carry out the instructions of the decision makers--the justices?

Based on Supreme Court archives, the personal papers of justices and other figures at the Supreme Court, and interviews and written surveys with 150 former clerks, Sorcerers' Apprentices is a rare behind-the-scenes look at the life of a law clerk, and how it has evolved since its nineteenth-century beginnings. Artemus Ward and David L. Weiden reveal that throughout history, clerks have not only written briefs, but made significant decisions about cases that are often unseen by those outside of justices' chambers. Should clerks have this power, they ask, and, equally important, what does this tell us about the relationship between the Supreme Court's accountability to and relationship with the American public?

Sorcerers' Apprentices not only sheds light on the little-known role of the clerk but offers provocative suggestions for reforming the institution of the Supreme Court clerk. Anyone that has worked as a law clerk, is considering clerking, or is interested in learning about what happens in the chambers of Supreme Court justices will want to read this engaging and comprehensive examination of how the role of the law clerk has evolved over its long history.

Judging under Uncertainty: An Institutional Theory of Legal Interpretation by Adrian Vermeule
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2006
KF4575 .V47 2006 Balcony

How should judges, in America and elsewhere, interpret statutes and the Constitution? Previous work on these fundamental questions has typically started from abstract views about the nature of democracy or constitutionalism, or the nature of legal language, or the essence of the rule of law. From these conceptual premises, theorists typically deduce an ambitious role for judges, particularly in striking down statutes on constitutional grounds. In this book, Adrian Vermeule breaks new ground by rejecting both the conceptual approach and the judge-centered conclusions of older theorists. Vermeule shows that any approach to legal interpretation rests on institutional and empirical premises about the capacities of judges and the systemic effects of their rulings. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from political science, economics, decision theory, and other disciplines, he argues that legal interpretation is above all an exercise in decisionmaking under severe empirical uncertainty. In view of their limited information and competence, judges should adopt a restrictive, unambitious set of tools for interpreting statutory and constitutional provisions, deferring to administrative agencies where statutes are unclear and deferring to legislatures where constitutional language is unclear or states general aspirations.

Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness by Pete Earley
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, c2006
RA790.6 .E27 2006 Basement

Pete Earley had no idea. He'd been a journalist for over thirty years, and the author of several award-winning-even bestselling-nonfiction books about crime and punishment and society. Yet he'd always been on the outside looking in. He had no idea what it was like to be on the inside looking out until his son, Mike, was declared mentally ill, and Earley was thrown headlong into the maze of contradictions, disparities, and catch-22s that is America's mental health system.

The more Earley dug, the more he uncovered the bigger picture: Our nation's prisons have become our new mental hospitals. Crazy tells two stories. The first is his son's. The second describes what Earley learned during a yearlong investigation inside the Miami-Dade County jail, where he was given complete, unrestricted access. There, and in the surrounding community, he shadowed inmates and patients; interviewed correctional officers, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, mental-health professionals, and the police; talked with parents, siblings, and spouses; consulted historians, civil rights lawyers, and legislators.

The result is both a remarkable piece of investigative journalism, and a wake-up call-a portrait that could serve as a snapshot of any community in America

The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present by Christopher Layne
Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2006
JZ1480 .L38 2006 Sohn

In a provocative book about American hegemony, Christopher Layne outlines his belief that U.S. foreign policy has been consistent in its aims for more than sixty years and that the current Bush administration clings to mid-twentieth-century tactics—to no good effect. What should the nation’s grand strategy look like for the next several decades? The end of the cold war profoundly and permanently altered the international landscape, yet we have seen no parallel change in the aims and shape of U.S. foreign policy.

The Peace of Illusions intervenes in the ongoing debate about American grand strategy and the costs and benefits of “American empire.” Layne urges the desirability of a strategy he calls “offshore balancing”: rather than wield power to dominate other states, the U.S. government should engage in diplomacy to balance large states against one another. The United States should intervene, Layne asserts, only when another state threatens, regionally or locally, to destroy the established balance.

Drawing on extensive archival research, Layne traces the form and aims of U.S. foreign policy since 1940, examining alternatives foregone and identifying the strategic aims of different administrations. His offshore-balancing notion, if put into practice with the goal of extending the “American Century,” would be a sea change in current strategy. Layne has much to say about present-day governmental decision making, which he examines from the perspectives of both international relations theory and American diplomatic history.

The First Amendment in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Comparative Legal Analysis of the Freedom of Speech by Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr.
New York : New York University Press, c2006
K3254 .K76 2006 Balcony

The First Amendment —and its guarantee of free speech for all Americans—has been at the center of scholarly and public debate since the birth of the Constitution, and the fervor in which intellectuals, politicians, and ordinary citizens approach the topic shows no sign of abating as the legal boundaries and definitions of free speech are continually evolving and facing new challenges. Such discussions have generally remained within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution and its American context, but consideration of free speech in other industrial democracies can offer valuable insights into the relationship between free speech and democracy on a larger and more global scale.

Ronald Krotoszynski compares the First Amendment with free speech law in Japan, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom—countries that are all considered modern democracies but have radically different understandings of what constitutes free speech. Challenging the popular—and largely American—assertion that free speech is inherently necessary for democracy to thrive, Krotoszynski contends that it is very difficult to speak of free speech in universalist terms when the concept is examined from a framework of comparative law that takes cultural difference into full account.

Linguistics in the Courtroom: A Practical Guide by Roger W. Shuy
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006
KF8968.54 .S483 2006 Balcony

More and more frequently linguists are being called upon to consult with lawyers and to testify at trials. The field known as "forensic linguistics" is growing rapidly as linguists analyze spoken and written language evidence in both civil and criminal cases.

Roger W. Shuy is a prominent linguist who has applied linguistics to the area of law for over thirty-five years. His book is a practical, how-to guide for both beginning and established linguists who have been called upon in this capacity and who may want to start their own consulting practice. Step by step, the book deals with issues of how linguists first become and then represent themselves as experts, how they can start and manage the practice of consulting on law cases, how they can address important issues of professional ethics, how they can work most effectively with lawyers, useful strategies for writing reports and affidavits, and how to participate successfully in depositions, direct examinations and cross examinations at trial. Professor Shuy also suggests ways that linguists can use their forensic linguistic experiences in their publications and classroom teaching, concluding with suggestions of some recent books that forensic linguists may need for their personal libraries. Both American and British legal systems are covered. Any linguist who is involved professionally in a legal action will find this volume an essential resource.

The Strange Laws of Old England by Nigel Cawthorne
London : Piatkus, 2004
KD662 .C38 2004 Basement

A fun and fascinating tour of the by-ways of British legal history. Did you know that the law requiring a London taxi driver to carry a bale of hay on top of his cab to feed the horse was in force until 1976? Or that Welshmen are not allowed in the city of Chester after dark? Nigel Cawthorne has unearthed an extraordinary (and sometimes hilarious) collection of the most bizarre and arcane laws that have been enacted over the centuries. Some of which, incredibly are still in force! It is still illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour….

The Creation of States in International Law by James Crawford
Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006
KZ4041 .C7 2006 Basement

As much as was ever the case in 1979 when the first edition of this major study was published, in the 21st century problems of territorial status and statehood are likely to continue to be a focal point of international disputes. As Rhodesia, Namibia, the South African Homelands and Taiwan then were subjects of acute concern, today governments, international organizations, and other institutions are seized of such matters as the membership of Cyprus in the European Union, application of the Geneva Conventions to Afghanistan, a final settlement for Kosovo, and, still, relations between China and Taiwan.

The remarkable increase in the number of States in the 20th century did not abate in the twenty five years following publication of James Crawford's landmark study, which was awarded the American Society of International Law Prize for Creative Scholarship in 1981. The independence of many small territories comprising the 'residue' of the European colonial empires alone accounts for a major increase in States since 1979; while the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the USSR in the early 1990s further augmented the ranks. With these developments, the practice of States and international organizations has developed by substantial measure in respect of self-determination, secession, succession, recognition, de-colonization, and several other fields.

Addressing such questions as the unification of Germany, the status of Israel and Palestine, and the continuing pressure from non-State groups to attain statehood, even, in cases like Chechnya or Tibet, against the presumptive rights of existing States, James Crawford discusses the relation between statehood and recognition as it has developed since the eighteenth century. The criteria for statehood and the effect on those criteria of evolving standards of democracy and human rights; their application in international organizations and between States; the creation of States by devolution or recession, by international disposition of major powers or international organizations and through institutions established for Mandated, Trust, and Non-Self-Governing Territories, are also discussed. Apart from the general argument of the normative significance of the legal concept of 'State', and the analysis of the numerous specific cases, this new edition of a landmark book provides a full and up-to-date account of the general development which has led to the birth of so many new States.

When Courts & Congress Collide: The Struggle for Control of America's Judicial System by Charles Gardner Geyh
Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2006
KF5130 .G49 2006 Balcony

With Congress threatening to "go nuclear" over judicial appointments, and lawmakers accusing judges of being "arrogant, out of control, and unaccountable," many pundits see a dim future for the autonomy of America's courts. But do we really understand the balance between judicial independence and Congress's desire to limit judicial reach? Charles Geyh's When Courts and Congress Collide is the most sweeping study of this question to date, and an unprecedented analysis of the relationship between Congress and our federal courts.

Efforts to check the power of the courts have come and gone throughout American history, from the Jeffersonian Congress's struggle to undo the work of the Federalists, to FDR's campaign to pack the Supreme Court, to the epic Senate battles over the Bork and Thomas nominations. If legislators were solely concerned with curbing the courts, Geyh suggests, they would use direct means, such as impeaching uncooperative judges, gerrymandering their jurisdictions, stripping the bench's oversight powers, or slashing judicial budgets. Yet, while Congress has long been willing to influence judicial decision-making indirectly by blocking the appointments of ideologically unacceptable nominees, it has, with only rare exceptions, resisted employing more direct methods of control. When Courts and Congress Collide is the first work to demonstrate that this balance is governed by a "dynamic equilibrium": a constant give-and-take between Congress's desire to control the judiciary and its respect for historical norms of judicial independence.

It is this dynamic equilibrium, Geyh says, rather than what the Supreme Court or the Constitution says about the separation of powers, that defines the limits of the judiciary's independence. When Courts and Congress Collide is a groundbreaking work, requiring all of us to consider whether we are on the verge of radically disrupting our historic balance of governance.

Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language by Joseph Kimble
Durham, N.C. : Carolina Academic Press, c2006
KF250 .K54 2006 Balcony

This book is unique. No other American book combines the strong evidence and myth-busting arguments for plain legal language with so much practical advice and so many useful examples. And no other book is more likely to open lawyers' eyes to the emptiness of legalese—the style that has afflicted legal writing for centuries.

Joseph Kimble, a leading expert on plain language, has collected in this one book many of his published essays. They will interest and inform judges, lawyers, law students, legal scholars, and anyone else who engages in legal writing. If writing is the lawyer's most valuable skill, then no lawyer can afford to be without Lifting the Fog of Legalese. It will change the attitude of those who resist plain language and inspire those who have embraced it.

Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of White-Collar Crime by Stuart P. Green
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006
K5018 .G694 2006 Balcony

Where should the line between serious criminal fraud and lawful 'puffing' be drawn? What constitutes tax evasion beyond mere 'tax avoidance'? What separates obstruction of justice from 'zealous advocacy', or insider trading from 'savvy investing'? Can we meaningfully distinguish bribery from 'campaign contributions', or perjury from 'wiliness' on the witness stand? A look at some of the most high profile white collar crime cases in recent history will quickly reveal that there can sometimes be a fine line between serious fraudulent conduct and behaviour which, though it might be shrewd, crafty, or even devious, is not ultimately criminal.

According to the traditional conception of the criminal law, penal sanctions should be used as a 'last resort', applicable only to conduct that is truly and unambiguously blameworthy. White collar crime poses a serious challenge to this traditional view. This is the first book to use the tools of moral and legal theory as a means to examine a range of specific white collar offenses, aiming to develop and apply a methodology that will allow us to make meaningful distinctions between genuine white collar criminality and merely aggressive business behavior.

Particular attention is paid to the concept of moral wrongfulness, which is described in terms of violations of a range of familiar, but nevertheless powerful, moral norms that inform and shape the leading white collar criminal offenses - norms against not only lying, cheating, and stealing, but also coercion, exploitation, disloyalty, promise-breaking, and defiance of law. It is through such analysis that the whole moral fabric of white collar crime is brought into sharp relief.

The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank and Their Borrowers by Ngaire Woods
Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2006
HG3881.5.I58 W66 2006 Sohn

The IMF and the World Bank have integrated a large number of countries into the world economy by requiring governments to open up to global trade, investment, and capital. They have not done this out of pure economic zeal. Politics and their own rules and habits explain much of why they have presented globalization as a solution to challenges they have faced in the world economy.”—from the Introduction

The greatest success of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has been as globalizers. But at whose cost? Would borrowing countries be better off without the IMF and World Bank? This book takes readers inside these institutions and the governments they work with. Ngaire Woods brilliantly decodes what they do and why they do it, using original research, extensive interviews carried out across many countries and institutions, and scholarship from the fields of economics, law, and politics.

The Globalizers focuses on both the political context of IMF and World Bank actions and their impact on the countries in which they intervene. After describing the important debates between U.S. planners and the Allies in the 1944 foundation at Bretton Woods, she analyzes understandings of their missions over the last quarter century. She traces the impact of the Bank and the Fund in the recent economic history of Mexico, of post-Soviet Russia, and in the independent states of Africa. Woods concludes by proposing a range of reforms that would make the World Bank and the IMF more effective, equitable, and just.