Tinsley E. Yarbrough

5531. John Marshall Harlan Great Dissenter of the Warren Court, by Tinsley E. Yarbrough (read 11 Feb 2018) The subject of this carefully crafted biography was born May 20, 1899, and is the grandson of the John Marshall Harlan who served on the U.S. Supreme Court and won undying fame for dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. His grandson went to Princeton and then to Oxford and only spent one year in an American law school. The book tells well of his first major case, where he defended successfully the will of an eccentric woman against a host of claimants. In his last case before he was named a Federal judge he defended DuPont in an anti-trust case the Government brought and won n the lower court--only to see the Supreme Court, after he had been named to that Court, reverse his victory which he of course could do nothing about since he could not sit on that matter The book does an excellent job discussing the time on the Supreme,Court to which he was appointed by Eisenhower and on which he served till, blind and in ill health he retired in 1971 and died shortly thereafter. He was a non-progressive jurist and many of his positions are not admirable in my view. For instance he was dismayed by Baker v. Carr and its progeny--the one person, one vote cases which are surely one of the great achievements of the Warren Court. And he greatly disapproved of the Miranda case, which his conservative successor, William Rehnquist, years later reaffirmed to the great dismay of reactionary justices like Clarence Thomas. In looking at Harlan's career one is struck by how he was able to see the side he was not naturally on and how often he deviated from the right wing side--something we do not see in today's Court where Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch are automatic votes for the illiberal side. I found this book extremely interesting and informative and do not see how a better biography of Harlan could be written.… (mehr)

I’m not exactly sure what I was looking for in this book but I finished a lot of it by skimming repetitive, long, dry sections. About all I came away with is that the Rehnquist court has not begun an all out assault on everything liberals hold dear. However, they are frequently whittling away at important protections we enjoy as citizens, less frequently acting as buffers against the tyranny of the majority from Congress and the chutzpah of the executive. Also, as the Rehnquist court had another five years to go at the time of publication (2000) I think Yarbrough missed out on a significant chunk of the court’s work. What may not have been an all out assault still slowly and inexorably is reaching the same position.

(Full review at my blog)… (mehr)