The Making of a Justice

June 3, 2019
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.

March 15, 2019
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 court--and the nature of the rulings--undergo 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.

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May 1, 2019
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)