Stephen Pomper

Ask yourself what qualities make for a great Supreme Court justice, and the answers that spring quickly to mind are along the lines of brilliance and consistency and impartiality. (If youre really being honest you might add shares my politics to that list.) But in his most recent book, The Supreme Court: The Personalities and […]

If the choice of topic signaled a certain defensiveness, there was good enough reason. Today’s liberal lawyers are groping around in something of a constitutional fog. Yes, there is a “Progressive Constitution,” in the sense that there are lines of cases dating back to the New Deal era that interpret the Constitution in a manner […]

Well, several things. Blackmun was perhaps the most prominent in a line of ideological apostates (i.e., Republican appointees who took a left turn) that stretched from him to John Paul Stevens to David Souter and includes (in much lesser measure) Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. Though a Nixon appointee, he went on to write […]

To the surprise of the legal left, the Rehnquist Court has refused to overturn Roe v. Wade and has broken new ground in protecting the civil rights of homosexuals. It has endorsed some forms of affirmative action. In last Spring’s highly charged enemy detainee cases, it refused to write the executive branch a blank check […]

Blair’s answer is that his book was motivated by a higher purpose, that he wrote it “in the hope that others who are teetering on the precipice of self-destruction will pull back before it is too late.” That sounds like a nice sentiment, but in practice it proves to be completely bogus. The book offers […]

Some of the things under development are quite amazing. For example, there is a biometric face scanner that can pick out known bad guys in a crowd. The Transportation Department is reportedly considering the development of a “dataveillance” program (in Rosen’s terminology) that will review travelers’ real-estate histories, living arrangements, and similar personal data, so […]

Given Bork’s history with the liberal establishment, perhaps it’s therapeutic for him to write on the same angry theme over and over again. But honestly, what’s in it for us readers? In a world where the Woodstock generation is dosing on Riopan Plus, Fox is the top-rated cable news network, and Republicans control Congress, the […]

Regardless of how you feel about religion, this should be an encouraging tale. For it supports the comforting idea that at the core of American religiosity, there beats a big and inclusive heart that has room for all. That’s what it means to be a tolerant culture, right? Not necessarily, according to Janet Jakobsen and […]

Lawyers are like the Untouchables of the Indian caste system–handling the tasks that are too messy for others to go near. We deal with other peoples’ money, fight their fights, and manage the negotiation of ugly little details that people don’t want to admit actually matter. We have been known to defend the indefensible, and […]

Right–and gun control is what will come to pass when all those anxious dog walkers reach critical mass and head for the voting booth. Meanwhile, Outgunned, by journalist Peter Harry Brown and trial attorney Daniel G. Abel, is about what’s happening in the here and now. More specifically, the book is a sympathetic look at […]