New at the Library

American Sherlock recounts the riveting true story of the birth of modern criminal investigation. Heinrich was one of the nation's first expert witnesses, working in a time when the turmoil of Prohibition led to sensationalized crime reporting and only a small, systematic study of evidence. However with his brilliance, and commanding presence in both the courtroom and at crime scenes, Heinrich spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools that police still use today, including blood spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests, and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence. His work, though not without its serious--some would say fatal--flaws, changed the course of American criminal investigation.

A rare behind-the-scenes look at the work of forensic scientists The findings of forensic science--from DNA profiles and chemical identifications of illegal drugs to comparisons of bullets, fingerprints, and shoeprints--are widely used in police investigations and courtroom proceedings. While we recognize the significance of this evidence for criminal justice, the actual work of forensic scientists is rarely examined and largely misunderstood. Blood, Powder, and Residue goes inside a metropolitan crime laboratory to shed light on the complex social forces that underlie the analysis of forensic evidence.

Description: The United States Constitution is a short document, and it is written in general language, which leaves much of the meaning unwritten and open to interpretation. Dig into this important document and watershed in the history of governments! (publ.)

In recent decades, companies around the world have deployed an arsenal of tools - including IP law, hardware design, software restrictions, pricing strategies, and marketing messages - to prevent consumers from fixing the things they own. While this strategy has enriched companies almost beyond measure, it has taken billions of dollars out of the pockets of consumers and imposed massive environmental costs on the planet. In The Right to Repair, Aaron Perzanowski analyzes the history of repair to show how we've arrived at this moment, when a battle over repair is being waged - largely unnoticed - in courtrooms, legislatures, and administrative agencies. With deft, lucid prose, Perzanowski explains the opaque and complex legal landscape that surrounds the right to repair and shows readers how to fight back.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 4 Dec. 2022 p. 24 (100 Notable Books of 2022)

Description: There is no hotter topic than the desire to constrain tech companies like Facebook from exploiting our personal data, or to keep Alexa from spying on you. Privacy has also provoked constitutional crisis (presidential tax returns) while Justice Clarence Thomas seeks to remove the protection of journalists who publish the truth about public officials. Is privacy under deadly siege, or actually surging? The answer is both, but that’s doubly dangerous, as legal expert Amy Gajda proves. Too little privacy means that unwanted exposure by those who deal in and publish secrets. Too much means the famous and infamous can cloak themselves in secrecy and shut down inquiry, and return us to the time before movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo opened eyes to hidden truths. We are not the first generation to grapple with that clash, to worry that new technologies and fraying social mores pose an existential threat to our privacy while we recognize the value in knowing certain things. Gajda carries us from the Gilded Age, when the concept of a right to privacy by name first entered American law and society, to now, when the law allows a Silicon Valley titan like Peter Thiel to destroy a media site like Gawker out of spite. Disturbingly, she shows that the original concern was not about intrusions into the lives of ordinary folks, but that the wealthy and powerful should not have their dignity assaulted by the wretches of the popular press like Nellie Bly. Alexander Hamilton argued both sides of the issue depending on what it was being known, and about whom. The modern right is anchored in a landmark 1890 essay by Louis Brandeis before he joined the Supreme Court, where he continued his instrumental support for the “privacies of life.” In the 1960s, privacy interests gave way to the glory days of investigative reporting in the era of Vietnam and Watergate. By the 1990s we were on our way to today's full-blown crisis of privacy in the digital age, from websites to webcams and the Forever Internet erasing our “right to be forgotten.” Or does it? (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 24 Nov. 2022 p. 18.

Description: Originalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Three of the Supreme Court’s nine justices explicitly embrace the originalist approach, as do increasing numbers of judges in the lower courts. Noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky gives a comprehensive analysis of the problems that make originalism unworkable as a method of constitutional interpretation. He argues that the framers themselves never intended constitutional interpretation to be inflexible and shows how it is often impossible to know what the “original intent” of any particular provision was. Perhaps worst of all, though its supporters tout it as a politically neutral and objective method, originalist interpretation tends to disappear when its results fail to conform to modern conservative ideology. (publ.)

Calmar Campus

Although much has changed in the United States since the eighteenth century, our framework for gun laws still largely relies on the Second Amendment and the patterns that emerged in the colonial era. America has long been a heavily armed, and racially divided, society, yet few citizens understand either why militias appealed to the founding fathers or the role that militias played in North American rebellions, in which they often functioned as repressive--and racist--domestic forces.

Reviewed: NYRB 12 May 2022 p. 52.
Description: Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution–a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact--a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text--a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. This is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them–and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. (publ.)

Volume I: Chapters 1 to 79 -- Volumes II: Chapters 80 to 215A -- Volume III: Chapters 216 to 305B -- Volume IV: Chapters 306 to 420 -- Volume V: Chapters 421 to 485 -- Volume VI: Chapters 486 to 523I -- Volume VII: Chapters 524 to 594A -- Volume VIII: Chapters 595 to 916 Tables & Indexes.

Reviewed: PW 3 May 2021 p. 46.
Description: No one is exempt from data mining: by owning a smartphone, or using social media or a credit card, we hand over private data to corporations and the government. We need to understand how surveillance and data collection operates in order to regain control over our digital freedoms–and our lives. Attorney and data privacy expert Heidi Boghosian unpacks widespread myths around the seemingly innocuous nature of surveillance, sets the record straight about what government agencies and corporations do with our personal data, and offers solutions to take back our information. I Have Nothing to Hide is both a necessary mass surveillance overview and a reference book. It addresses the misconceptions around tradeoffs between privacy and security, citizen spying, and the ability to design products with privacy protections. Boghosian breaks down misinformation surrounding 21 core myths about data privacy, including: Surveillance makes the nation safer; No one wants to spy on kids; Police don’t monitor social media; Metadata doesn’t reveal much about me; Congress and the courts protect us from surveillance; & There’s nothing I can do to stop surveillance. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 22 Mar. 2021 p. 75.
Description: In the first comprehensive account of the Supreme Court's race-related jurisprudence, a distinguished historian and a renowned civil rights lawyer scrutinize a legacy too often blighted by racial injustice. Discussing nearly 200 cases in historical context, the authors show the Court can still help fulfill the nation's promise of equality for all. (publ.)

Description: As the most powerful judiciary body in the U.S., the Supreme Court is expected to uphold Constitutional values while remaining insulated from influence by political agendas. In recent years, however, some have perceived the Supreme Court as becoming increasingly politicized, with some labeling the 2018 appointment of Justice Kavanaugh a pro-conservative political maneuver. Despite these recent concerns, there are also numerous historical examples of judicial activism. This volume discusses the Supreme Court’s politicization across history, examines whether it is realistic or useful to expect it to be insulated from politics, and evaluates possible means of depoliticizing the court. (publ.)

Description: This book reveals how the Supreme Court allows the perpetuation of racist policing by presuming that suspects, especially people of color, are guilty. It presents a troubling history that reveals how the Supreme Court enabled racist policing and sanctioned law enforcement excesses. The fact that police are nine times more likely to kill Black men than other Americans is no accident; it is the result of an elaborate body of doctrines that allow the police and courts to presume that suspects are guilty before being charged. Demonstrating how the prodefendant Warren Court was a brief historical aberration, Erwin Chemerinsky shows how this more liberal era ended with Nixon’s presidency and the ascendance of conservative justices, whose rulings (like Terry v. Ohio and Los Angeles v. Lyons) have permitted stops and frisks, limited suits to reform police departments, and even abetted the use of chokeholds. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 12 Apr. 2021 p. 66; NYT/BR 30 May 2021 p. 1.
Description: Investigates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has been constructed from the start to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 10 June 2021 p. 34.
Description: This book explores justice in the age of artificial intelligence. It argues that current AI tools used in connection with liberty decisions are based on utilitarian frameworks of justice and inconsistent with individual fairness reflected in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence. It uses AI risk assessment tools and lethal autonomous weapons as examples of how AI influences liberty decisions. The algorithmic design of AI risk assessment tools can and do embed human biases. Designers and users of these AI tools have allowed some degree of compromise to exist between accuracy and individual fairness. Written by a former federal judge who lectures widely and frequently on AI and the justice system, this book is the first comprehensive presentation of the theoretical framework AI tools in the criminal justice system and lethal autonomous weapons utilize in decision-making. The book then provides the most comprehensive explanation as to why, tracing the evolution of the debate regarding racial and other biases embedded in such tools. No other book delves as comprehensively into the theory and practice of AI risk assessment tools. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 22 Mar. 2021 p. 72; NYT/BR 20 June 2021 p. 12.
Description: Constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar tells the story of America’s constitutional conversation during its first eighty years–from the Constitution's birth in 1760 through the 1830s, when the last of America’s early leaders died. Amar traces the threads of Constitutional discourse, uniting history and law in a narrative that seeks both to reveal this history anew and to make clear who was right and who was wrong on the biggest legal issues confronting early America. Amar provides an essential history of the Constitution’s formative decades and an indispensable guide for anyone seeking to understand America’s Constitution and its relevance today.

Reviewed: PW 24 June 2019 p. 163.
Description: There’s a critical debate taking place over one of our most treasured rights: free speech. We argue about whether it’s at risk, whether college students fear it, whether neo-Nazis deserve it, and whether the government is adequately upholding it. But as P. E. Moskowitz provocatively shows, the term has been defined and redefined to suit those in power, and in recent years, it has been captured by the Right to push their agenda. What’s more, our investment in the First Amendment obscures an uncomfortable truth: free speech is impossible in an unequal society where a few corporations and the ultra-wealthy bankroll political movements, millions of voters are disenfranchised, and our government routinely silences critics of racism and capitalism. Weaving together history and reporting from Charlottesville, Skokie, Standing Rock, and the college campuses where student protests made national headlines, Moskowitz argues that these flash points reveal more about the state of our democracy than they do about who is allowed to say what. Our current definition of free speech replicates power while dissuading dissent, but a new ideal is emerging. In this forcefully argued, necessary corrective, Moskowitz makes the case for speech as a tool–for exposing the truth, demanding equality, and fighting for all our civil liberties. (publ.)

A broad introduction to the changing roles of intellectual property within society. By granting exclusive rights to publish, manufacture, copy, or distribute information and technology, IP laws shape our cultures, our industries, and our politics in countless ways, with consequences for everyone, including artists, inventors, entrepreneurs, and citizens at large. In this engaging, accessible study, Aram Sinnreich uncovers what's behind current debates and what the future holds for copyrights, patents, and trademarks.

When a loved one with mental illness comes into contact with the law, trying to advocate for them can be an overwhelming and frustrating endeavor. Mental illness adds a layer of complexity to legal processes, and the justice system can be downright bewildering, even for the most well-intentioned. How can families find out if their loved one is being mistreated or ignored, and how can they make sense of their rights under various laws and regulations? Family Guide to Mental Illness and the Law offers the nuts-and-bolts legal information and problem-solving steps families need. Readers will learn how to help protect a loved one's job, housing, or medical care, participate in hearings about guardianship, involuntary commitment, bankruptcy, and more. Complete with real-world examples, Family Guide to Mental Illness and the Law provides practical advice and eases the feelings of isolation that often accompany loving someone with mental illness.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 7 Feb. 2021 p. 10.
Description: In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty’s decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction. Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation’s death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state’s highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners–many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker–along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do. In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. (publ.)

Description: In eighteenth-century New Orleans, the legal testimony of some 150 enslaved women and men–like the testimony of free colonists–was meticulously recorded and preserved. Questioned in criminal trials as defendants, victims, and witnesses about attacks, murders, robberies, and escapes, they answered with stories about themselves, stories that rebutted the premise on which slavery was founded. Focusing on four especially dramatic court cases, this book draws us into Louisiana’s courtrooms, prisons, courtyards, plantations, bayous, and convents to demonstrate how enslaved people viewed and experienced their worlds. Sophie White offers both a richly textured account of slavery in French Louisiana and a powerful meditation on the limits and possibilities of the archive. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 15 July 2019 p. 67; NYRB 18 Nov. 2021 p. 23.
Description: Minow explores the complicated intersection of the law, justice, and forgiveness, asking whether the law should encourage people to forgive, and when courts, public officials, and specific laws should forgive. (publ.)

Description: This book depicts in graphic terms, the pain, suffering, fears, and trepidations of the plaintiffs while discussing the legal system–lawyers, judges, juries, and testimony–that made judgments on their "causes," as the suits were often called. Arguments for freedom were diverse: slaves brought suits claiming they had been freed in wills and deeds, were born of free mothers, were descendants of free white women or Indian women; they charged that they were illegally imported to some states or were residents of the free states and territories. Those who testified on their behalf–usually against leaders of the communities–were generally white. So too were the lawyers who took these cases, many of them men of prominence, such as Francis Scott Key. More often than not, these men were slave owners themselves–complicating our understanding of race relations in the antebellum period. A majority of the cases examined here were not appealed, nor did they create important judicial precedent. Indeed, most of the cases ended at the county, circuit, or district court level of various southern states. Yet the narratives of both those who gained their freedom and those who failed to do so, and the issues their suits raised, shed a bold and timely light on the history of race and liberty in the "land of the free." (publ.)

Child labor law strikes most Americans as a fixture of the country's legal landscape, involving issues settled in the distant past. But these laws, however self-evidently sensible they might seem, were the product of deeply divisive legal debates stretching over the past century--and even now are subject to constitutional challenges. Child Labor in America tells the story of that historic legal struggle. The book offers the first full account of child labor law in America--from the earliest state regulations to the most recent important Supreme Court decisions and the latest contemporary attacks on existing laws. Children had worked in America from the time the first settlers arrived on its shores, but public attitudes about working children underwent dramatic changes along with the nation's economy and culture. A close look at the origins of oppressive child labor clarifies these changing attitudes, providing context for the hard-won legal reforms that followed. Author John A. Fliter describes early attempts to regulate working children, beginning with haphazard and flawed state-level efforts in the 1840s and continuing in limited and ineffective ways as a consensus about the evils of child labor started to build. In the Progressive Era, the issue finally became a matter of national concern, resulting in several laws, four major Supreme Court decisions, an unsuccessful Child Labor Amendment, and the landmark Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Fliter offers a detailed overview of these events, introducing key figures, interest groups, and government officials on both sides of the debates and incorporating the latest legal and political science research on child labor reform. Unprecedented in its scope and depth, his work provides critical insight into the role child labor has played in the nation''s social, political, and legal development.

Description: This history of the 1787 Constitutional Convention uses a chronological narrative format to capture the complexity, messiness, and unfolding daily drama behind the writing of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the role of contingency in that process. The Framers of the U.S. Constitution designed a novel republican form of government to replace the failing Confederation, one that would divide power between the federal government and the states, launching a new phase of the American "experiment" in representative democracy. Not until the end of the American Civil War, nearly a century later, would it become clear, as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." This provides an invaluable guide covering the background to the convention, the convention itself, the ratification of the Constitution, and the adoption of the Bill of Rights. In addition to the narrative itself, the story of the convention is supplemented with a detailed chronology, a rich selection of primary source documents, 15 biographical sketches of convention delegates, and a comprehensive bibliographical essay. Based largely on primary sources, the book also weighs in on some of the historiographical debates that have taken place among scholars about the convention. (publ.)

Copyright law never sleeps, making it imperative to keep abreast of the latest developments. Declared "an exemplary text that seals the standards for such books" (Managing Information), this newly revised and updated edition by respected copyright authority Crews offers timely insights and succinct guidance for LIS students, librarians, and educators alike. Readers will learn basic copyright definitions and key exceptions for education and library services; find information quickly with "key points" sidebars, legislative citations, and cross-references; get up to speed on fresh developments, such as how the recently signed Marrakesh Treaty expands access for people with disabilities and why the latest ruling in the Georgia State University case makes developing a fair use policy so important; understand the concept of fair use, with fresh interpretations of its many gray areas that will aid decision making; learn the current state of affairs regarding mass digitization, Creative Commons, classroom use and distance education, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and other important topics; receive guidance on setting up on a copyright service at a library, college, or university; and find many helpful checklists for navigating copyright in various situations. This straightforward, easy-to-use guide provides the tools librarians and educators need to take control of their rights and responsibilities as copyright owners and users.

Description: The first book-length account of the origins of this element of the Second Amendment, based on the Founders’ own statements as revealed in newspapers, correspondence, debates, and resolutions. Mr. Halbrook investigates the period from 1768 to 1826, from the last years of British rule and the American Revolution through to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the passing of the Founders’ generation. This book offers the most comprehensive analysis of the arguments behind the drafting and adoption of the Second Amendment, and the intentions of the men who created it. (publ.)

Impeachment: What Everyone Needs to KnowRG is the step back and deep reflection on the law of impeachment that everyone needs now. Written in an accessible and lively question-and-answer format, it offers a timely explanation of the impeachment process from its very meaning to its role inpolitics today.The book defines the scope of impeachable offenses, and how the Constitution provides alternative procedures and sanctions for addressing misconduct in office. It explains why the only two presidential impeachments, those of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, failed to lead to conviction, and how theimpeachments of federal judges illuminate the law and politics of the process.As a legal expert and the only joint witness in the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, author Michael J. Gerhardt also explores a question frequently asked-will Donald Trump be impeached? This book does not take a side in the debate over the possible impeachment of the president;instead, it is a primer for anyone eager to learn about impeachment's origins, practices, limitations, and alternatives.

The Indecent Screen explores clashes over indecency in broadcast television among U.S.-based media advocates, television professionals, the Federal Communications Commission, and TV audiences. Cynthia Chris focuses on the decency debates during an approximately twenty-year period since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which in many ways restructured the media environment. Simultaneously, ever increasing channel capacity, new forms of distribution, and time-shifting (in the form of streaming and on-demand viewing options) radically changed how, when, and what we watch. But instead of these innovations quelling concerns that TV networks were too often transmitting indecent material that was accessible to children, complaints about indecency skyrocketed soon after the turn of the century. Chris demonstrates that these clashes are significant battles over the role of family, the role of government, and the value of free speech in our lives, arguing that an uncensored media is so imperative to the public good that we can, and must, endure the occasional indecent screen. 

Reviewed: NYRB 27 Feb. 2020 p. 39
Description: This is the story of a hometown newspaper in Riverside, California, that set out to do its job: tell readers about shocking crimes in their own backyard. But when judges slammed the courtroom door on the public, including the press, it became impossible to tell the whole story. Pinning its hopes on business lawyer Jim Ward, whom Press-Enterprise editor Tim Hays had come to know and trust, the newspaper took two cases to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s. Hays was convinced that the public–including the press–needed to have these rights and needed to bear witness to justice because healing in the aftermath of a horrible crime could not occur without community catharsis. The newspaper won both cases and established First Amendment rights that significantly broadened public access to the judicial system, including the right for the public to witness jury selection and preliminary hearings. (publ.)

At the heart of developed societies lies an insatiable drive for wealth and prosperity. Yet in a world ruled by free-market economics, there are always winners and losers. The benefits enjoyed by the privileged few come at the expense of the many. In this important new book, Stephan Lessenich shows how our wealth and affluence are built overwhelmingly at the expense of those in less-developed countries and regions of the world. His theory of 'externalization' demonstrates how the negative consequences of our lifestyles are directly transferred onto the world's poorest. From the destruction of habitats caused by the massive increase in demand for soy and palm oil to the catastrophic impact of mining, Lessenich shows how the Global South has borne the brunt of our success. Yet, as we see from the mass movements of people across the world, we can no longer ignore the environmental and social toll of our prosperity.  Lessenich's highly original account of the structure and dynamics of global inequality highlights the devastating consequences of the affluent lifestyles of the West and reminds us of our far-reaching political responsibilities in an increasingly interconnected world.

Reviewed: Choice (Jun. 2019 vol. 56 no. 10) Top 75 books recommended for community college libraries.
Description: This book describes how Predators, Reapers, Scan Eagles, and dozens of other pilotless aircraft have been used to fight the Global War on Terrorism. Technology developed in the latter decades of the 20th century enabled crews stationed thousands of miles away to attack targets on remote battlefields. Such long-range and remote-controlled weapons have been extensively used but are controversial from both legal and ethical standpoints. Chapters written by international law specialists and drone pilots with advanced education in ethics address these issues from both sides of the argument. The book also details how robotic systems are being used on land, in and below the seas, and in civilian applications such as driverless cars. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Mar 2019 vol. 56 no. 7) Top 75 books highly recommended for community college libraries.
Description: In the twenty-first century, the gap between those who have more and those who have less is growing: 1 per cent of the world owns as much as the other 99 per cent. Should we be worried? Christopher Steed argues that that economic fairness is one of the defining issues of our time. The author is concerned with exploring why inequality matters, something ignored by most studies. He probes what it means to experience inequality, drawing out case studies on the effects of poverty, how it impacts upon people's sense of self-worth, and explores what can be done about it. In proposing a theory of social relativity the author provides new insights into the effects and meaning of inequality and makes an original and important contribution to a key issue facing the world today. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT 8 Sept. 2019 p. SR7 (excerpt/op.ed); NYT/BR 13 Oct. 2019 p. 13; PW 24 June 2019 p. 163; NYRB 5 Dec. 2019 p. 24; LRB 30 July 2020 p. 21; TLS 21 Feb. 2020 p. 9.
Description: The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 2 Sept. 2018 (author interview)
Description: Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry. In this clear and carefully reasoned book, a university chancellor and a law school dean (both constitutional scholars who teach a course in free speech to undergraduates) argue that campuses must provide supportive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body but can never restrict the expression of ideas. This book provides the background necessary to understanding the importance of free speech on campus and offers clear prescriptions for what colleges can and can't do when dealing with free speech controversies. (publ.)

Reviewed: LJ 1 May 2018 p. 83; NYRB 27 Sept. 2018 p. 32.
Description: Until the 21st century, most of our activities were private by default, public only through effort; today anything that touches digital space has the potential (and likelihood) to remain somewhere online forever. That means all of the technologies that have made our lives easier, faster, better, and/or more efficient have also simultaneously made it easier to keep an eye on our activities. Or, as we recently learned from re-ports about Cambridge Analytica, our data might be turned into a propaganda machine against us. In 10 crucial legal cases, [this book] explores the tools of surveillance that exist today, how they work, and what the implications are for the future of privacy. (publ.)

Description: “Hate speech” censorship proponents stress the potential harms such speech might further: discrimination, violence, and psychic injuries. However, there has been little analysis of whether censorship effectively counters the feared injuries. Citing evidence from many countries, this book shows that “hate speech” laws are at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive. Their inevitably vague terms invest enforcing officials with broad discretion, and predictably, regular targets are minority views and speakers. Therefore, prominent social justice advocates in the U.S. and beyond maintain that the best way to resist hate and promote equality is not censorship, but rather, vigorous “counterspeech” and activism. … We hear too many incorrect assertions that “hate speech”–which has no generally accepted definition–is either absolutely unprotected or absolutely protected from censorship. Rather, U.S. law allows government to punish hateful or discriminatory speech in specific contexts when it directly causes imminent serious harm. Yet, government may not punish such speech solely because its message is disfavored, disturbing, or vaguely feared to possibly contribute to some future harm. When U.S. officials formerly wielded such broad censorship power, they suppressed dissident speech, including equal rights advocacy. (publ.)

Description: Should we legalize marijuana? If we legalize, what in particular should be legal? Just possessing marijuana and growing your own? Selling and advertising? If selling becomes legal, who gets to sell? Corporations? Co-ops? The government? What regulations should apply? How high should taxes be? Different forms of legalization could bring very different results. This book discusses what is happening with marijuana policy, describing both the risks and the benefits of using marijuana, without taking sides in the legalization debate. It details the potential gains and losses from legalization, explores the “middle ground” options between prohibition and commercialized production, and considers the likely impacts of legal marijuana on occasional users, daily users, patients, parents, and employers–and even on drug traffickers. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Jun 2019 vol. 56 no. 10) Top 75 books highly recommended for community college libraries.
Description: When we think of sex–good sex, bad sex, sexual assault, rape law, or university sexual misconduct policies–we so often turn to consent as both our moral and erotic savior. What counts as sexual consent? How can we make consent sexy? How do we teach consent to impressionable youth, potential predators, and victims alike? What if these are all the wrong questions? This book is a provocative take on consent and whether its place at the center of sexual politics and sex law is warranted. … Author Joseph J. Fischel fervently argues that the consent paradigm of sexual politics is profoundly flawed. In addition to the criticisms against consent leveled by feminist theorists of earlier generations, Fischel elevates three more: consent is insufficient, inapposite, and riddled with scope contradictions for regulating and imagining sex. We can do so much better than consent in our sexual politics. Fischel contends that sexual justice turns more productively on concepts of autonomy and access rather than consent. Cleverly humorous and adeptly researched, this book will have a significant impact on how we understand consent, sexuality, and law in the U.S. today. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 24 Feb. 2019 p. 11; PW 10 Dec. 2018 p. 136; LJ Winter 2018 p. 87; Economist 9 Feb. 2019 p. 73; Choice (Sep. 2019 vol. 57 no. 1) Recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court case synonymous with “separate but equal,” created remarkably little stir when the justices announced their near-unanimous decision on May 18, 1896. Yet it is one of the most compelling and dramatic stories of the nineteenth century, whose outcome em-braced and protected segregation, and whose reverberations are still felt into the twenty-first. … The book depicts indelible figures such as the re-sisters from the mixed-race community of French New Orleans, led by Lou-is Martinet, a lawyer and crusading newspaper editor; Homer Plessy’s law-yer, Albion Tourgée, a best-selling author and the country’s best-known white advocate for civil rights; Justice Henry Billings Brown, from antislavery New England, whose majority ruling endorsed separation; and Justice John Harlan, the Southerner from a slaveholding family whose singular dissent cemented his reputation as a steadfast voice for justice. (publ.)

Description: It has become clear from discussions of the recent high-profile cases of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and others that there is no clear agreement over what constitutes consent or non-consent and how they are expressed and perceived in sexual situations. This book presents key strands of feminist thought on the subject of sexual consent from across academic and activist communities and covers the history of research on con-sent in such fields as psychology and feminist legal studies. It discusses how sexual consent is negotiated in practice, from “No means no” to “Yes means yes,” and describes what factors might limit individual agency in such negotiations. It examines how popular culture, including pornography, romance fiction, and sex advice manuals, shapes our ideas of consent; explores the communities at the forefront of consent activism; and considers what meaningful social change in this area might look like. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 28 Jan. 2019 p. 84.
Description: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Did you know that these twenty-six words are responsible for much of America’s multibillion-dollar online industry? What we can and cannot write, say, and do online is based on just one law–a law that protects online services from lawsuits based on user content. Jeff Kosseff exposes the workings of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which has lived mostly in the shadows since its enshrinement in 1996. Because many segments of American society now exist largely online, Kosseff argues that we need to understand and pay attention to what Section 230 really means and how it affects what we like, share, and comment upon every day. (publ.)

Reviewed: LJ Jan. 2018 p. 112; CHE 12 Jan. 2018 (new books).
Description: A history of the Supreme Court decision that set the legal precedent for citizen challenges to government surveillance. … Jeffrey L. Vagle draws on the legacy of the 1972 Supreme Court decision in Laird v. Tatum to tell the fascinating and disturbing story of jurisprudence related to the issue of standing in citizen challenges to government surveillance in the United States. It examines the facts of surveillance cases and the reasoning of the courts who heard them, and considers whether the obstacle of standing to surveillance challenges in U.S. courts can ever be overcome. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 25 June 2017 p. 15; Choice Sep. 2017 vol. 55 no. 1 (Essential; Top 75 titles recommended for community college libraries); CHE 4 Aug. 2017 p. B2; Top 10 Books of 2017 (PW 30 Oct. 2017 p. 22; NYRB 22 Feb. 2018 p. 19; TLS 13 July 2018 p. 9.
Description: Challenges the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation – that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes it clear that it was de jure segregation – the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments – that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 9 June 2017 (new books)
Description: Before 1882, the U.S. federal government had never formally deported anyone, but that year an act of Congress made Chinese workers the first group of immigrants eligible for deportation. Over the next forty years, lawmakers and judges expanded deportable categories to include prostitutes, anarchists, the sick, and various kinds of criminals. The history of that lengthening list shaped the policy options U.S. citizens continue to live with into the present. …[This book] chronicles the unsystematic emergence of what has become an internationally recognized legal doctrine, the far-reaching impact of which forever altered what it means to be an immigrant and a citizen. (publ.)

Note: Library standing order.

Reviewed: CHE 30 June 2017 (new books)
Description: New and emerging surveillance technologies allow government agents to track us wherever we go, to monitor our activities online and offline, and to gather massive amounts of information relating to our financial transactions, communications, and social contacts. In addition, traditional police methods like stop-and-frisk have grown out of control, subjecting hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens to routine searches and seizures. In this work, David Gray uncovers the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment to reveal how its historical guarantees of collective security against threats of “unreasonable searches and seizures” can provide concrete solutions to the current crisis. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice Apr 2017 vol. 54 no. 8 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Libraries); TLS 9 June 2017 p. 22

Reviewed: LJ 15 Nov. 2017 p. 92
Description: With stories from the front lines, a legal scholar journeys through distinct legal climates to understand precisely why and how the war over abortion is being fought. Drawing on her years of research in El Salvador–the only country to ban abortion without exception–legal scholar Michelle Oberman explores what happens when a country makes ending a pregnancy a crime. She reveals the practical experiences of criminalizing abortion, such as selective enforcement, mistaken diagnoses, wrongful convictions, and a thriving black market in abortion drugs, and she describes how Salvadoran doctors and lawyers collaborate in order to identify and prosecute those suspected of abortion-related crimes. To illustrate how similar draconian polices are enforced in the United States, Oberman turns her attention to Oklahoma, one of the most pro-life states. Through a series of interviews with current and former legislators in Oklahoma, and in stories gathered from crisis pregnancy centers and abortion clinics, Oberman reveals how abortion-related laws become incentives or penalties, nudging pregnant women in one direction or another. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 20 Nov. 2017 p. 84.
Description: Peels away the myths of gun culture to expose the true historical origins of the Second Amendment, revealing the racial undercurrents connecting the earliest Anglo settlers with contemporary gun proliferation, modern-day policing, and the consolidation of influence of armed white nationalists. From the enslavement of Blacks and the conquest of Native America, to the arsenal of institutions that constitute the “gun lobby,” Loaded presents a people's history of the Second Amendment, as seen through the lens of those who have been most targeted by guns: people of color. Meticulously researched and thought-provoking throughout, this is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the historical connections between racism and gun violence in the United States. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 9 Feb. 2018 (new books)
Description: Swirling in the midst of the resurgence of neo-Nazi demonstrations, hate speech, and acts of domestic terrorism are uncomfortable questions about the limits of free speech. The United States stands apart from many other countries in that citizens have the power to say virtually anything without legal repercussions. But, in the case of white supremacy, does the First Amendment demand that we defend Nazis? In this book, legal experts Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic argue that it should not. Updated to consider the white supremacy demonstrations and counter-protests in Charlottesville and debates about hate speech on campus and on the internet, the book offers a concise argument against total, unchecked freedom of speech. Delgado and Stefancic instead call for a system of free speech that takes into account the harms that hate speech can inflict upon disempowered, marginalized people. They examine the prevailing arguments against regulating speech, and show that they all have answers. They also show how limiting free speech would work in a legal framework and offer suggestions for activist lawyers and judges interested in approaching the hate speech controversy intelligently. As citizens are confronting free speech in contention with equal dignity, access, and respect, the authors put aside clichés that clutter First Amendment thinking, and presents a nuanced position that recognizes the needs of our increasingly diverse society. (publ.)

Description: Offers a sweeping overview of the constantly shifting tensions and opinions created by American expectations of privacy versus their collective desire for national security. Briefly touching on the foundations of Constitutional law that underpin privacy, the book concentrates on the current divisions over domestic spying in the wake of recent revelations of NSA domestic surveillance. More than 30 primary sources–drawn from Supreme Court decisions to opinions published in respected contemporary sources–outline key legislation, confront myths regarding privacy, discuss past abuses, and reveal sharply divided opinions regarding current challenges to both privacy and national security interests that pit fears of an emerging surveillance state against a need for national security in a dangerous world. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 22 Jan. 2018 p. 75
Description: This blisteringly candid discussion of the American dilemma in the age of Trump brings together the head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the former attorney general of the United States, a bestselling author and death penalty lawyer, and a star professor for an honest conversation the country desperately needs to hear. Drawing on their collective decades of work on civil rights issues as well as personal histories of rising from poverty and oppression, these leading lights of the legal profession and the fight for racial justice talk about the importance of reclaiming the racial narrative and keeping our eyes on the horizon as we work for justice in an unjust time. (publ.)

Note: Library standing order.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 2 July 2017 p. 27; CHE 14 July 2017 (new books)
Description: Poor mothers in America have been deprived of the right to privacy. The U.S. Constitution is supposed to bestow rights equally. Yet the poor are subject to invasions of privacy that can be perceived as gross demonstrations of governmental power without limits. (publ.)

Description: We live more and more of our lives online; we rely on the internet as we work, correspond with friends and loved ones, and go through a multitude of mundane activities like paying bills, streaming videos, reading the news, and listening to music. Without thinking twice, we operate with the understanding that the data that traces these activities will not be abused now or in the future. There is an abstract idea of privacy that we invoke, and, concrete rules about our privacy that we can point to if we are pressed. Nonetheless, too often we are uneasily reminded that our privacy is not invulnerable-the data tracks we leave through our health information, the internet and social media, financial and credit information, personal relationships, and public lives make us continuously prey to identity theft, hacking, and even government surveillance. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 28 July 2017 (new books)
Description: On the surface, Americas commitment to equal opportunity in the workplace has never been clearer. Virtually every company has anti-discrimination policies in place, and there are laws designed to protect these rights across a range of marginalized groups. But …this progressive vision of the law falls far short in practice. When aggrieved individuals turn to the law, the adversarial character of litigation imposes considerable personal and financial costs that make plaintiffs feel like they’ve lost regardless of the outcome of the case. Employer defendants also are dissatisfied with the system, often feeling held up by what they see as frivolous cases. And even when the case is resolved in the plaintiffs favor, the conditions that gave rise to the lawsuit rarely change. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 17 Aug. 2017 p. 33
Description: A constitutional scholar traces the evolution of legal and moral codes that have attempted to legislate sexual behavior from the ancient world to today, citing the agitators, moralists, lawmakers, and Supreme Court justices who have shaped some of the most divisive sexual debates. (publ.)

Contents: Feeling surveillance -- Welcome to the funopticon : the insidious pleasures of ludic surveillance -- Growing up observed : surveillance and childhood -- Watching Walden : surveillance in the wild -- A mighty fortress is our god : selling surveillance in the Bible Belt -- The business of insecurity : inside the new surveillance marketplace.

Reviewed: FA 96(6) Nov./Dec. 2017 p. 139
Description: This is the story of surveillance in Britain and the United States, from the detective agencies of the late nineteenth century to Wikileaks and CIA whistle-blower Edward Snowden in the twenty-first. Written by historian and intelligence expert Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, it is the first full overview of its kind. Delving into the roles of credit agencies, private detectives, and phone-hacking journalists as well as agencies like the FBI and NSA in the USA and GCHQ and MI5 in the UK, Jeffreys-Jones high-lights malpractices such as the blacklist and illegal electronic interceptions. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 6 Nov. 2017 p. 72; Economist 10 Mar. 2018 p. 83; NPR ("Fresh Air" 3/26/2018)
Description: Reveals how American businesses won equal rights and trans-formed the Constitution to serve the ends of capital. Corporations—like minorities and women—have had a civil rights movement of their own, and now possess nearly all the same rights as ordinary people. Uncovering the deep historical roots of Citizens United, Adam Winkler shows how that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision was the capstone of a two-hundred-year battle over corporate personhood and constitutional protections for business. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 24 Mar. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: CHE 3 Feb. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: NYRB 20 Apr. 2017 p. 50

Reviewed: Choice Apr 2017 vol. 54 no. 8 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Libraries); TLS 9 June 2017 p. 22.
Description: Simply put, the Constitutional Convention almost didn't happen, and once it happened, it almost failed. And, even after the convention succeeded, the Constitution it produced almost failed to be ratified. Just as importantly, the Constitution was hardly the product of philosophical reflections by brilliant, disinterested statesmen, but rather ordinary interest group politics. Multiple conflicting interests had a say, from creditors and debtors to city dwellers and backwoodsmen. The upper class overwhelmingly supported the Constitution; many working class colonists were more dubious. Slave states and nonslave states had different perspectives on how well the Constitution served their interests. Ultimately, both the Constitution's content and its ratification process raise troubling questions about democratic legitimacy. The Federalists were eager to avoid full-fledged democratic deliberation over the Constitution, and the document that was ratified was stacked in favor of their preferences. And in terms of substance, the Constitution was a significant departure from the more democratic state constitutions of the 1770s. Definitive and authoritative, The Framers' Coup explains why the Framers preferred such a constitution and how they managed to persuade the country to adopt it. We have lived with the consequences, both positive and negative, ever since. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 10 Feb. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: CHE 10 Mar. 2017 (new books); Choice Sep 2017 vol. 55 no. 1 (Highly Recommended)

Access Note: Also available online.

Reviewed: CHE 17 Feb. 2017 (author op/ed piece)

Reviewed: WSJ 29/30 Apr. 2017 p. C7
Description: “…when Berns said to Jaffa that the opening of the Declaration of Independence was one of the best things ever written, ‘but the ending was one of the worst,’ … the fight was on.” (WSJ)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 23 Apr. 2017 p. 26; WSJ 1 May 2017 p. A15; Choice Sep. 2017 vol. 55 no. 1 (Highly Recommended; Top 75 Titles recommended for community college libraries)
Description: The right of Americans to voice their beliefs without government approval or oversight is protected under what may well be the most honored and least understood addendum to the U.S. Constitution–the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment issues, examines the degree to which American law protects free speech more often, more intensely, and more controversially than is the case anywhere else in the world, including democratic nations such as Canada and England. In this lively, powerful, and provocative work, the author addresses legal issues from the adoption of the Bill of Rights through recent cases such as Citizens United. He also examines the repeated conflicts between claims of free speech and those of national security occasioned by the publication of classified material such as was contained in the Pentagon Papers and was made public by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.