Advertisement
More from the Review
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest
Martha Stewart
Linda Greenhouse is a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School and a frequent contributor to The New York Times’s opinion pages. The third edition of her book The US Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction was published last year. (December 2024)
Are Sheriffs Above the Law?
County sheriffs are useful to the right. They appear regularly as talking heads on conservative media, especially on the subject of immigration. Many vignettes of sheriffs in action are dramatic and alarming. But how representative are they?
The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy
by Jessica Pishko
October 3, 2024 issue
The Constant Presence of Fear
The anthropologist Laurence Ralph has long written about the search for meaning in lives beset by conflict and crisis. In Sito, his new book about the murder of a nineteen-year-old relative, one of the seekers turns out to be Ralph himself.
Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him
by Laurence Ralph
June 20, 2024 issue
Social Progress & the Courts
For decades Gerald Rosenberg, author of The Hollow Hope, has argued that courts labor under structural constraints that will almost always deprive them of the ability to bring about significant change. He would be entitled to a triumphant “I told you so” but for one dramatic development: the 2015 Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?
by Gerald N. Rosenberg
March 21, 2024 issue
An Unhealthy Definition of Rights
For the new majority on the Supreme Court, religious liberty takes precedence over the government’s power to protect public health.
Constitutional Contagion: Covid, the Courts, and Public Health
by Wendy E. Parmet
December 21, 2023 issue
Why Aren’t Cops Held to Account?
Decades of Supreme Court decisions have converted qualified immunity from a commonsense rule into a powerful doctrine that deprives people injured by police misconduct of recourse.
The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts
by Stephen B. Bright and James Kwak, with a foreword by Bryan Stevenson
Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable
by Joanna Schwartz
September 21, 2023 issue
Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered
Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.
Judgment and Mercy: The Turbulent Life and Times of the Judge Who Condemned the Rosenbergs
by Martin J. Siegel
June 22, 2023 issue
Victimhood and Vengeance
The contemporary rise of Christian nationalism in the US is a reactionary response to the country’s liberalization over the past half-century.
The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy
by Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, with a foreword by Jemar Tisby
Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular
by David A. Hollinger
This Earthly Frame: The Making of American Secularism
by David Sehat
February 9, 2023 issue
A Powerful, Forgotten Dissent
Stephen Breyer’s dissent in the Supreme Court’s Parents Involved case has proved prophetic about the decision’s consequences for racial integration in public schools.
Breaking the Promise of Brown: The Resegregation of America’s Schools
by Stephen Breyer, with an introduction by Thiru Vignarajah
October 6, 2022 issue
Should We Reform the Court?
A recent report commissioned by President Biden lets the public in on the fact that the legal academy is close to giving up on the Supreme Court.
Final Report
by the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States
April 7, 2022 issue
Grievance Conservatives Are Here to Stay
What accounts for the paradox of religious ascendance over an ever more secular American society?
The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
by Katherine Stewart
Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty?: The Unnecessary Conflict
by Andrew Koppelman
July 1, 2021 issue
The First and Last of Her Kind
The legal academy has tended to be dismissive of Sandra Day O’Connor, arguing that she had no overarching theory of constitutional interpretation. But the Supreme Court is not a law school faculty workshop. She saw herself as a problem-solver.
First: Sandra Day O’Connor
by Evan Thomas
November 7, 2019 issue
The Impeachment Question
Although the risks of launching a failed impeachment are obvious, there are clear benefits as well.
The Mueller Report
with an introduction and analysis by Rosalind S. Helderman and Matt Zapotosky
Impeachment: A Handbook
by Charles L. Black Jr. and Philip Bobbitt
The Case for Impeaching Trump
by Elizabeth Holtzman
To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment
by Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz
The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents
by Corey Brettschneider
June 27, 2019 issue
Wrongfully Convicted
Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted
edited by Laura Caldwell and Leslie S. Klinger, with an introduction by Scott Turow and Barry Scheck
Blind Injustice: A Former Prosecutor Exposes the Psychology and Politics of Wrongful Convictions
by Mark Godsey
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South
by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington, with a foreword by John Grisham
He Calls Me by Lightning: The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty
by S. Jonathan Bass
June 28, 2018 issue
Who Killed the ERA?
Was the amendment the cause of polarization or its victim? Or did it turn out to be something else: a catalyst for positive change?
Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics
by Marjorie J. Spruill
October 12, 2017 issue
How Smart Women Got the Chance
Nancy Weiss Malkiel’s “Keep the Damned Women Out”
“Keep the Damned Women Out”: The Struggle for Coeducation
by Nancy Weiss Malkiel
April 6, 2017 issue
The Bittersweet Victories of Women
Litigation is not for the fainthearted
Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years That Changed American Women’s Lives at Work
by Gillian Thomas
May 26, 2016 issue
Free calendar offer!
Subscribe now for immediate access to the latest issue and to browse the rich archive. You’ll save 50% and receive a free David Levine 2025 calendar.
Subscribe nowGive the gift they’ll open all year.
Save 65% off the regular rate and over 75% off the cover price and receive a free 2025 calendar!