Marcia Coyle

If you've read the book jacket, you'll already know that "The Roberts Court" discusses the direction of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts. Marcia Coyle traces the paths and resolutions of five landmark decisions on race, guns, immigration, campaign finance, and health care, and how a smart group of conservative lawyers has crafted cases with an eye toward an increasingly receptive conservative majority.

Unfortunately, the book didn't always keep me engaged, seemed a little long, and often dry. Something seemed to be missing (for me). The description is all there, but some additional commentary and analysis might have helped me. If you're interested in the Supreme Court under John Roberts, I'd recommend Jeffery Toobin's similar book, "The Oath". I think Toobin's book is much better.… (más)

Marcia Coyle analyzes the jurisprudential shift in the Supreme Court starting with John Roberts’s arrival at the court as its new chief justice. She notes that the court has become significantly more conservative, perhaps the most marked reorientation in decades. She concludes that Roberts, despite his affirmation at confirmation hearings that he believes in narrow rulings with great respect for precedents, has not consistently followed this judicial path.

She suggests that it was the departure of Sandra Day O’Connor and her replacement by Samuel Alito that was the most impactful on the court’s close decisions. O’Connor was substantially a moderate who often sided with the liberal wing of justices in 5-4 decisions. Alito is a deeply conservative justice who can be relied on to uphold conservative viewpoints at every turn. Most important, O’Connor’s absence elevated Justice Arthur Kennedy to the “swing vote” place among the justices and he is more conservative in his holdings than was O’Connor. After a long period of stability the court has seen substantial turnover since 2005, but it clearly was Alito for O’Connor and the new swing role for Kennedy that has had the most impact.

To frame her analysis Coyle uses four areas in which the court has made landmark decisions: race, gun control, campaign financing and the health care. She describes in a balanced way the constitutional basis for the justices’ opinions, but concludes that the outcomes of the decisions were among the most radical restructuring of constitutional interpretations in the court’s history. She believes that the court, while not being per se more politically motivated than its predecessors, has altered the country’s political landscape in profound ways that will have deep impact on the fundamental relationships between the government and the people, between the government’s three branches and between the federal government and states.

Although these four areas are the basis for her book, she also includes other decisions reached by the court during this time. As the public’s attention is most focused on the big 5-4 decisions, it was interesting to note that in many more cases the court is not at all sharply divided in its votes. The common perception that the conservative and liberal wings of the court are intractably opposed to each other is not fully accurate

Coyle provides us with thoughtful analysis of the underlying judicial and constitutional philosophies of the court’s members. The viewpoints of the justices on the correct bases for constitutional interpretations are quite significantly disparate, but she recognizes that however much one might disagree with a justice’s underpinning perspective the justices deserve respect as each are deeply thoughtful and committed to the vital importance of the role of the court in our system of government.

She gives interesting insights into confirmation hearings of Roberts, Alito, Sotomayor and Kagan. She writes about the lawyers who will argue before the court and describes their intensive preparations of briefs and oral arguments.

These days there is a lot of sharp attention in the media, among politicians, scholars and the people to the import of the court’s viewpoints. The widening partisan divide in our national dialogue has contributed to greater scrutiny about the court and how it will affect the issues of the day. Coyle performs a useful task in taking us much more deeply into the thinking of the justices and the workings of the court.… (más)

This book is a solid and thoughtful review of the workings of the Supreme Court since Roberts became Chief Justice, focussing on four critical cases involving affirmative action, gun control, campaign finance, and health care. The reporting is precise and goes deeply into the issues and personalities involved, but it is accessible to a non-legal reader. I learned a lot about the way the Court works in reading it. Why four stars? Because I didn't find it as compelling a read as Toobin's work. By the end, I was feeling rather overwhelmed with legal detail. Still, I shall look forward to reading Ms. Coyle's future works.… (más)