On May 1, 2009, Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement as an Associate Justice when the U.S. Supreme Court recessed for the summer. To fill this vacancy, President Barack Obama selected Sonia Sotomayor, a judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In announcing the nomination, President Obama noted her Ivy League education and extensive judicial experience. President Obama also emphasized Sotomayor's life story, discussing in particular her upbringing as a child of Puerto Rican born parents in a Bronx housing project. The Sotomayor nomination prompted renewed discussion among Senators, media commentators, and scholars regarding racial, ethnic, gender, religious, professional, and educational diversity on the Court. With the upcoming retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, announced on April 9, 2010, this discussion is likely to be renewed. With his departure, the Court will lose its only protestant Christian member.
Contents: (1) Introduction: Supreme Court Appointments in Historical Context; (2) Demographic Characteristics: Race and Ethnicity; Gender; Religion; (3) Professional Background: Experience in Private Practice; Experience as a Government Attorney; Judicial Experience; Prior Political Experience; Prior Military Experience; (4) Educational Background: Type of Legal Training; Law School Education; (5) Conclusion.
This volume explores the Supreme Court Justice appointment process--from Presidential announcement, Judiciary Committee investigation, confirmation hearings, vote, and report to the Senate, through Senate debate and vote on the nomination.
Contents: (1) Pres. Selection of a Nominee: Senate Advice; Advice from Other Sources; Criteria for Selecting a Nominee; Background Invest.; Recess Appoint. to the Court; (2) Consid. by the Senate Judiciary Comm.: Background: Senators Nominated to the Court; Open Hear.; Nominee Appear. at Confirm. Hear.; Comm. Involvement in Appoint. Process; Pre-Hearing Stage; Hearings; Reporting the Nomin.; (3) Senate Debate and Confirm. Vote; Bringing Nomin. to the Floor; Evaluate Nominees; Filibusters and Motions to End Debate; Voice Votes, Roll Calls, and Vote Margins; Reconsid. of the Confirm. Vote; Nomin. That Failed to be Confirmed; Judiciary Comm. to Further Examine the Nomin.; After Senate Confirm.
Constitutionalism in the Americas unites the work of leading scholars of constitutional law, comparative law and Latin American and U.S. constitutional law to provide a critical and provocative look at the state of constitutional law across the Americas today. The diverse chapters employ a variety of methodologies – empirical, historical, philosophical and textual analysis – in the effort to provide a comprehensive look at a generation of constitutional change across two continents.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Unfair succinctly and persuasively recounts cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system, illustrating many with case studies.”—The Boston Globe A child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer. The evidence is all around us: Our system of justice is fundamentally broken. But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us. This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning. Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law.
This edited volume provides multidisciplinary and international insights into the policy, managerial and educational aspects of diverse students’ transitions from education to employment. As employers require increasing global competence on the part of those leaving education, this research asks whether increasing multiculturalism in developed societies, often seen as a challenge to their cohesion, is in fact a potential advantage in an evolving employment sector. This is a vital and under-researched field, and this new publication in Springer’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training series provides analysis both of theory and empirical data, submitted by researchers from nine nations including the USA, Oman, Malaysia, and countries in the European Union. The papers trace the origins of business demand for diversity in their workforce’s skill set, including national, local and institutional contexts. They also consider how social, demographic, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity inform the attitudes of those seeking work—and those seeking workers. With clear suggestions for future research, this work on a topic of rising profile will be read with interest by educators, policy makers, employers and careers advisors.
Male and white privilege are on the decline, yet elite privilege has gone from strength to strength. The privileges enjoyed by the rich and powerful are not only unfair but cause widespread harm, from the everyday slights and humiliations visited on those lower down the scale to the distortions in the labour market when elites use their networks to secure plum jobs, not least in new domains such as professional sports. In this book, Clive Hamilton and Myra Hamilton show that elite privilege is not a mere by-product of wealth but an organising principle for society as a whole. They explore the practices and processes that sustain, legitimise and reproduce elite privilege and show how we are all implicated in the system, both facilitating it and tolerating its harmful effects. Building on their original fieldwork and a wide range of other sources, the authors paint a vivid picture of the micropolitics of elite privilege, highlighting in particular the vital role played by exclusive private schools. Ranging across topics as diverse as ‘glamour suburbs’, philanthropy, Rhodes scholarships and super-yachts, The Privileged Few delves beneath attempts at concealment to expose how the elites keep getting away with it.
Comparing law to the American practice of common courtesy, this book explains how our courts not only survive under conditions of suspected hypocrisy, but actually depend on these conditions to function.
Written by the leading authority on legal decision making, Professional Judgment for Lawyers integrates empirical legal research, cognitive and social psychology, organizational behavior, legal ethics, and neuroscience to understand and improve decision making by attorneys, clients, judges, arbitrators, mediators, and juries.
