Nine Black Robes

January 30, 2023
CNN legal analyst Biskupic (The Chief) delivers a thorough analysis of how Donald Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices has changed the Supreme Court. Contending that the appointments “propelled the judiciary into a new period of polarization,” Biskupic notes that Neil Gorsuch “stubbornly resisted Court protocols and openly derided Roberts’s reasoning in opinions.” Brett Kavanaugh’s bruising confirmation hearings left him torn between “his allegiance to conservative backers and his desire for acceptance among the legal elites who shunned him,” while his friend and fellow Catholic Amy Coney Barrett skillfully deflected questions about her opposition to abortion during her own hearings. The three newcomers emboldened conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, while undermining the authority of Chief Justice Roberts, an institutionalist who was inclined to seek middle ground with the court’s liberal wing. The shift in power quickly led to rulings—on abortion, the separation of church and state, environmental regulation, and gun rights—that “reordered every part of American life,” while sending the Court’s public approval rating plummeting. Biskupic thoroughly analyzes the headline cases and provides background on the rise of the Federalist Society, the role of White House counsel Don McGahn, and more. Comprehensive and accessible, this is a valuable overview of a profound shift in American jurisprudence.

March 1, 2023
The senior Supreme Court analyst for CNN examines the current court and the elemental dangers it poses. It wasn't long after being installed that Trump's three appointees to the Supreme Court--Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett--began to pull the institution hard to the right, joining Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in an openly evident program to dismantle abortion rights and LGBTQ+ equality. "This court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks," Barrett remarked, but all signs point to the contrary even if the justices collectively, at least, repudiated Trump in his quest to overturn Joe Biden's electoral victory. Indeed, writes Biskupic, Trump "treated the judiciary as if it were his to command, from his early weeks in office to his final weeks after he lost the 2020 election." Of course, he had willing allies on the bench: Even if Clarence Thomas did not vote in Trump's favor, he "showed sympathy for Trump's claims of fraud," influenced by his Trump-supporting, election-contesting wife, and has refused to recuse himself from cases involving tests of "independent state legislative theory that could collapse judicial safeguards." On the latter point, Biskupic adds that Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh showed signs of being willing to entertain arguments in favor of state authority over federal elections--which, had it been in place, would have installed Trump. The court has taken to fighting "culture-war issues of guns and religion," Biskupic notes, and is moving steadily to fulfill the right-wing desideratum of less and less federal regulation--as can be seen, for one, by its curtailing of some of the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory powers. The court is likely to prove destructive by any progressive measure, she closes, "a majority laying waste to precedents and, indeed, offering no one confidence that it was done with its work." Court watchers and civil rights activists alike will find this essential--and disturbing--reading.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2023

CNN legal analyst Biskupic (The Chief) updates the inner workings of the U.S. Supreme Court. Previously, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's The Bretheren and Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine revealed the discord behind the cloak of collegiality. This book is a middle-ground between Woodward's chronological discussion of significant cases and Toobin's engaging analysis of the rise of the Federalist Society and its effect on the Court. Biskupic shows how the Senate's rejection of vocal conservative Robert Bork led to conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, Brett Cavanagh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The book benefits greatly from interviews with Don McGahn, Donald Trump's White House counsel who worked with the Federalist Society to place its members on the bench. The book remains a study of the workings of the Court, not in-depth profiles of the judges and how they think. Overall, this is an even-handed, well-written look at the U.S. Supreme Court, with the author despairing of the conservative takeover and lack of compromise. VERDICT U.S. Supreme Court watchers will appreciate an inside look at recent momentous decisions.--Harry Charles

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2023
CNN legal analyst and veteran SCOTUS journalist Biskupic follows her previous biographies of Supreme Court justices, including The Chief (2019), with an up-to-the-minute, laser-focused examination of the Court as a whole during what is arguably its most contentious and controversial iteration to date. For much of its history, the Court has operated behind a cloak of public anonymity. That all changed with the pandemic, forcing justices to meet remotely and making their real-time deliberations available to the public. What was revealed was a surprising and disquieting level of personal animosity and ideological incompatibility that manifested in narrow rulings with wide-reaching consequences. Biskupic trenchantly displays the scope of political hypocrisy undermining the Court, from Senator Mitch McConnell's stonewalling of Merrick Garland's nomination to his steamrolling of Amy Coney Barrett's investiture just days before the 2020 election. Combined with Trump's previous appointments of ultra-conservative judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanagh, the seismic shifts potentially undermining the Court's constitutional mission were cemented in place. Biskupic's keen overview of current Supreme Court dynamics and projected judicial legacy illustrates the inherent tensions between personalities, the undue influence of politics, and the alarming concentration of power resting within an institution vulnerable to outside forces. Devoted Court-watchers will devour this behind-the-scenes expose.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.