Law Books for Valentine's Day
by Mary Whisner
If you want to woo your Valentine, you might want to look into fine
chocolates, beautiful love songs, or a romantic weekend away. But if you
want to read about some of the law’s treatment of sexuality, consider these
new arrivals in the Law Library:
- Rachel F. Moran, Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race &
Romance (2001). KF4757.M667 2001 at Classified Stacks
- The publisher’s website has this teaser: “Few people realize that as
late as the 1960s, states could legally punish minorities who either had
sex with or married persons outside their racial groups. The first history
of the legal regulation of interracial relationships, Rachel Moran’s
groundbreaking book also grapples with the consequences of that history.
For Moran, interracial intimacy profoundly affects not only racial
identity and equality, but sexual, marital, and family autonomy as well.
With remarkable range, Moran’s historical analysis addresses the
experiences of Blacks, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans--all
of whom have faced formal or informal barriers to intermarriage.”
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/14188.ctl
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- Joyce Murdoch & Deb Price, Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians
v. the Supreme Court (2001). HQ76.8.U5M97 2001 at Classified Stacks
- Writing in Legal Times, Tony Mauro says the authors “have brought the
justices themselves into the story of the gay rights legal movement. . . .
[T]hey talked to gay clerks and friends and family members of the justices
to come up with a meaningful portrait of how even an ivory tower court can
be touched by the real world-a world in which gays and lesbians live.”
Legal Times, Dec. 17, 2001.
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- Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,”
Censorship and the Innocence of Youth (2001). Z658.U5H42 2001 at
Classified Stacks
- A reviewer in Mother Jones found this book “a timely appeal to our
better judgment.” Mother Jones, May 1, 2001, at 101. The New York Times
reviewer found Heins “sympathetic” but thought the book seemed “oddly
insulated from the real world of shock jocks and sleazy talk shows.” New
York Times, Aug. 25, 2001, at B9.
For additional descriptions of selected books see the
Book of the Week Archive.
Understanding the U.S. Supreme Court Justices
by Sarah Devotion Garner, Reference Intern
We’ve all wondered about a judge’s legal analysis, but have you ever gone
deeper and wondered what exactly makes him or her tick? Do you remember when
you first realized the judge writing a decision had a distinct personality
and attitude that shone through in his or her opinion? This happened to me
most often in my criminal and constitutional classes.
At the Gallagher Law Library, you can tap into a wealth of resources
about the personalities that comprise the judicial branch. For a broad
overview of Justices that served on the Supreme Court, stop by the Reference
Office for The Supreme Court Compendium: Data, Decisions, and
Developments (KF8742 S914 1996) or A Reference Guide to the United
States Supreme Court (KF8742 R45 1986). Fenton Martin and Robert U.
Goehlert's The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography includes citations
for the general writing by each Justice as well as writings about them –
books, law review articles, and PhD dissertations. (KF8741.A1M37 1990 at
Reference Office).
You can also use LegalTrac, located on the
MARIAN page, to find law
review articles written from 1980 to the present, or the Index to Legal
Periodicals (K33.I5 at Reading Room), which covers the late 1880s to
present. If you are interested in a theoretical approach to judges’ minds,
check out some law review articles written by legal realists. In the 1920s
and 1930s, a school of thought called Legal Realism developed, through
proponents like Karl Llewellyn and Jerome Frank, who theorized that judges'
personalities shaped how they viewed the law (e.g., even what the judge ate
for breakfast influences his or her ruling).
However, if you want a more in-depth treatment of a particular justice,
the Law Library's got it. Searching the
catalog by the subject
heading "United
States Supreme Court biography" or by individual names retrieves a
plethora of books. Recent biographies focus on:
- John Marshall: John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme
Court, by Kent R. Newmyer. KF8745.M3N49 2001 at Classified Stacks
- Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law Without Values: The Life, Work, and
Legacy of Justice Holmes, by Albert W. Alschule. KF8745.H6 A66 2000 at
Classified Stacks
- Earl Warren: Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren, by Ed
Cray. KF8745.W3 C73 1997 at Classified Stacks
One name often mentioned in conjunction with Earl Warren is Billings
Learned Hand, who never served on the Supreme Court but is considered one of
the greatest American jurists (he served on the Second Circuit Court of
Appeals). You can find Gerald Gunther’s biography of him: Learned Hand:
The Man and the Judge, KF373.H29 G76 1994 in the Classified Stacks.
Doing some extracurricular reading on the judicial branch will both help
you better understand what you are learning in school and also hold you in
good stead at law firm cocktail parties.
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