Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court
by Edward P. Lazarus
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Book Summary Information
Author: Edward P. LazarusEdition: Hardcover
Published: 1998-03-31
ISBN: 0812924029
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Crown
Book Reviews of Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court
Book Review: The Supreme Court in Masterful Context
Summary: 5 Stars
Edward Lazarus's Closed Chambers is a master work; and joins Bernard Schwartz's Super Chief as the two best books I've read to date about the Supreme Court. I strongly disagree with the opinion that Lazarus's book does not deliver what it promises.
The Supreme Court is an institution chock-full of mystique-its deliberations often shrouded in cloistered secrecy. Therefore, it's only natural that readers would want a birds-eye view of how the Court actually works. Lazarus gives us such a view, and does it exceedingly well.
For example, he explains that the Court's cases generally arise through the federal appellate courts below it in 12 regional circuits throughout the country;that it will likely hear a case if at least 2 circuit courts disagree about the same federal controversy;its decision to hear a case(or "grant cert")requires thes vote of at least 4 Justices; and that the Court will then issue a briefing schedule for the appellant and respondent attorneys, and schedule oral argument. Following oral argument, the Court will debate amongst themselves at conference.
Afterward, the Justices eventually vote to support either the appellant's or respondent's position. The intrigue involved here is often riveting, for each Justice must persuade his/her colleague to accept his or her view of the case. How successfully the Justice does so determines which Justice assigns the majority opinion for the Court-and which Justice gets to write it.
Having this technical information alone, however useful, comes nowhere close to giving a full appreciation of how the Court actually works.
Like the Constitution, the Court is a dynamic institution which has evolved greatly over time. Having served as a clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun in the 1988 Term, Lazarus is in a unique insider's position to provide searing and poignant historical context to how the Court has
addressed its most explosive and divisive issues: a). the death penalty(with its inherent connections to race and poverty); b). affirmative action; and c). abortion. Without this needed historical background, one cannot fully understand how and why the Court has calcified into rigid ideological(liberal-conservative)camps on these, and far too many other issues. This hardening process was no accident. In the case of the death penalty, it resulted largely from the success of liberal death penalty abolitionist lawyers in the 1950s. Lazarus argues that for all the moral courage implicit in their anti-death penalty stands, Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan ironically lost influence; for Richard Nixon's elections in 1968 and 1972 eventually produced a successful conservative legal counterweight to abolition. This is seen most clearly when Lazarus chronicled how law clerks have become(and remain) important components of the ideological battleground the Court has become. Lazarus laments that on such a battleground, the Justices have allowed reasoned legal argument to give way to strident political advocacy.
Conservatives now largely control the agenda, particularly regarding affirmative action.
Because Lazarus humanized the plight of the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade; and because he revealed how deeply Justice Blackmun agonized over its authorship, I now understand the abortion issue in a new way. He argues that had the Justices approached Roe v. Wade and its progeny from the perspective of gender equity rather than privacy, they could have reached a less tortured consensus. This in turn could have enabled them to issue clearer, more consistent opinions as a result.
Lazarus also explained essential terms such as strict scrutiny-one of many "tests" the Court has developed to guide how rigorous it will be when evaluating the constitutionality of a legislature's laws or actions.
In 540 brilliant pages, Closed Chambers explores how the Court works; WHY it works as it does; and what it means. It is exhaustively researched, with each case cited and expanded upon as appropriate. Could Lazarus have written an equally good book in many fewer pages? Probably, but don't be deterred. The book's length is not a burden. Fortunately for us, Lazarus decided that given his rare insider perspective; and the gravity of the issues past and present before the Court; only his maximum effort would do justice to himself, his book, and its deservedly many readers. Lazarus's choice to provide us more rather than less makes Closed Chambers a profound and essential book.
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