The making of a justice Reflections on my first 94 years

John Paul Stevens, 1920-

Book - 2019

"A masterful and personal account of life on the Supreme Court that offers a unique understanding of American history from one of the most prominent jurists of our time. When Justice John Paul Stevens retired from the Supreme Court of the United States in 2010, he left a legacy of service unequaled in the history of the Court. During his thirty-four-year tenure, Justice Stevens was a prolific writer, authoring in total more than 1000 opinions. In THE MAKING OF A JUSTICE, John Paul Stevens recounts the first ninety-four years of his extraordinary life, offering an intimate and illuminating account of his service on the nation's highest court. Appointed by President Gerald Ford and eventually retiring during President Obama's f...irst term, Justice Stevens has been witness to, and an integral part of, landmark changes in American society. With stories of growing up in Chicago, his work as a naval traffic analyst at Pearl Harbor during World War II, and his early days in private practice, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most important Supreme Court decisions over the last four decades, THE MAKING OF A JUSTICE offers a warm and fascinating account of Justice Stevens' unique and transformative American life. This comprehensive memoir is a must read for those trying to better understand our country and the Constitution."--Jacket.

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

BIOGRAPHY/Stevens, John Paul
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor BIOGRAPHY/Stevens, John Paul Checked In
Subjects
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Little, Brown and Company 2019.
Language
English
Main Author
John Paul Stevens, 1920- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
ix, 549 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780316489645
  • My ancestors
  • Grammar school
  • FDR and Babe Ruth
  • The armed robbery
  • The World's Fair
  • Delavan, Wisconsin
  • The University of Chicago
  • Joining the Navy
  • Naval service on Oahu
  • Law school
  • Law clerk for Wiley Rutledge
  • The Poppenhusen Firm
  • The "Celler Committee"
  • The 1952 GOP convention
  • Rothschild, Stevens & Barry
  • Pro bono work
  • Teaching antitrust law
  • People v. Isaacs
  • The Court of Appeals
  • Two scandals
  • Taking the oath of office
  • The Stevens court
  • The O'Connor court
  • The Scalia court
  • The Kennedy court
  • The Souter court
  • The Thomas court
  • The Ginsburg court
  • The Breyer court
  • The Roberts and Alito courts
  • The Sotomayor court
  • The Kagan court.
Review by New York Times Review

PATSY, by Nicole Dennis-Benn. (Liveright, $26.95.) The title character of Dennis-Benn's second novel leaves her young daughter behind in Jamaica when she comes to America as an undocumented immigrant to reconnect with a female lover. The book avoids cliché, finding ample pleasure with the pain and sacrifice. A GOOD AMERICAN FAMILY: The Red Scare and My Father, by David Maraniss. (Simon & Schuster, $28.) With poignant honesty, Maraniss, a skilled biographer and historian, scrutinizes the life of his father, a communist sympathizer who was subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee, harassed by the F.B.I. and blacklisted in his career as a newspaperman. THE MAKING OF A JUSTICE: Reflections on My First 94 Years, by John Paul Stevens. (Little, Brown, $35.) The 99-year-old Stevens looks back on his 35 years as a justice on the Supreme Court, reflecting on cases in which he played a key role and also on larger themes like the shape of American democracy. CLYDE FANS: A Picture Novel, by Seth. (Drawn & Quarterly, $54.95.) Twenty years in the making, this substantial graphic novel tells a multi-generational story of a family-owned electrical fan business in Toronto - the ups and downs of livelihoods tied to sales and fathers and sons who grapple with changing times. MRS. EVERYTHING, by Jennifer Weiner. (Atria, $28.) Balancing her signature wit with a political voice that's new to her fiction, Weiner tells the story of the women's movement through the lives of two sisters raised in 1950s Detroit. The book holds up the prism of choice and lets light shine through from every angle. DEAF REPUBLIC: Poems, by Ilya Kaminsky. (Graywolf, paper, $16.) This extraordinary poetry collection is structured as a two-act play, in which an occupying army kills a deaf boy and villagers respond by marshaling a wall of silence as a source of resistance. "Our hearing doesn't weaken," one poem declares, "but something silent in us strengthens." THE LAND OF FLICKERING LIGHTS: Restoring America in an Age of Broken Politics, by Michael Bennet. (Atlantic Monthly, $27.) The Colorado senator and Democratic presidential candidate presents his views, based on personal experience, of the partisan stalemate in Washington and how to overcome it. RUNNING TO THE EDGE: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed, by Matthew Futterman. (Doubleday, $28.95.) A deputy sports editor at The Times profiles the coach who helped make American distance runners a threat. THE THIRTY-YEAR GENOCIDE: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi. (Harvard, $35.) This study ventures beyond the well-known Armenian death marches to attacks on other minorities as well. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 21, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review

Retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, Stevens here recalls his 35 years on the bench. While the decisions in which he participated will be of primary interest, Stevens' recollections of his upbringing in Chicago, naval service in WWII, and legal career in the 1950s and 1960s will also sustain attention. Stevens remembers meeting aviation celebrities Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart when they stayed at his father's hotel, and his interest in sports prompts many enlivening tales. Stevens became an anti-trust specialist and a Republican, and his connection to Illinois U.S. senator Charles Percy factored into his appointment in 1970 to the federal appellate court, from which President Gerald Ford elevated him to the Supreme Court in 1975. Stevens' anecdotes about the court's members during his tenure show that friendships arise despite differences in judicial outlook. Stevens, for example, champions analyzing legislative history, a method abhorred by the late Justice Scalia. Stevens' illumination of the court's internal processes, accounts of cases, and often caustic opinions of its results form an important contribution to legal literature.--Gilbert Taylor Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this dense autobiography focused, except for a few brief opening chapters, on professional matters, former Supreme Court Justice Stevens revisits his 35-year tenure on the court, 1975-2010. This period saw significant shifts in the Court's constitutional jurisprudence on gender and race discrimination, LGBTQ issues, the death penalty, campaign finance, the regulation of firearms, and affirmative action. While Stevens eschews a gossipy take on Court personalities, he is more than happy to take the gloves off when criticizing the opinions of other justices-he calls a 1985 William Rehnquist decision, on the police brutality case Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, "one of the worst opinions" decided during his term on the court-and instances in which he believes the Court has taken radically wrong turns, among them the rulings that hold the Second Amendment essentially prohibits gun regulation; the Court's bar on state regulation of campaign finance; Bush v. Gore, which stopped the Florida vote recount in the 2000 presidential election; and a decision holding that there is no compelling state interest in maintaining racial diversity in public schools. Stevens explicates a dizzying number of decisions and often delves deeply into recondite areas of constitutional law. Dedicated court followers will find this rewarding, but readers without a legal background, and even some who with, will find this difficult to navigate. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Review by Kirkus Book Review

The retired Supreme Court justice chronicles his impressive life story, including his 34-year tenure with the court.Born in 1920, Stevens (Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, 2014, etc.) recounts his privileged upbringing, early law career, and lower-court experience before providing nearly 400 pages of year-by-year decision-making as a Supreme Court justice. A Republican appointed by President Gerald Ford, Stevens transcended the party ideology of many court colleagues in order to work together with those appointed by Democratic presidents. Despite the conventional wisdom of court chroniclers who identify justices as "conservative" or "liberal," the author's majority opinions and dissents cannot be easily pigeonholed. He candidly shares his thought processes on hundreds of cases, often openly criticizing his fellow justices for their lack of legal acumen and/or lack of compassion. Stevens is frequently critical of justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas for the refuge they have sought in the theory of originalism. Refreshingly, though, the author never attacks his fellow justices in a personal, gossipy manner, and he discusses his varying degrees of friendship with each of them. Stevens theorizes that the dynamics of the courtand the nature of the rulingsundergo transformation every time a new justice joins. As a result, the author presents brief sections about the immediate impact of each new justice during his 34 years, ending with his successor in 2010, Elena Kagan. Although Stevens reveres the court's reputation as a nonpartisan arbiter, he realizes that reputation has never fully recovered from the politically tinged 5-4 ruling in 2000 that handed the presidency to George W. Bush rather than Al Gore. The author also offers searing commentary on cases involving abortion rights, gun control, wrongful convictions in criminal courts, campaign finance, and many other ongoing societal issues.The author's consistently absorbing commentary on a wide variety of legal cases will require close attention by readers, but the payoff is worth it. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.