(A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts o...)
A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitutionâ??s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls â??active libertyâ?: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitutionâ??s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.
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(Breaking the Vicious Circle is a tour de force that shoul...)
Breaking the Vicious Circle is a tour de force that should be read by everyone who is interested in improving our regulatory processes. Written by a highly respected federal judge, who would go on to serve on the Supreme Court, and who obviously recognizes the necessity of regulation but perceives its failures and weaknesses as well, it pinpoints the most serious problems and offers a creative solution that would for the first time bring rationality to bear on the vital issue of priorities in our era of limited resources.
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( A landmark dissenting opinion arguing against the death...)
A landmark dissenting opinion arguing against the death penalty. Does the death penalty violate the Constitution? In Against the Death Penalty, Justice Stephen Breyer argues that it does; that it is carried out unfairly and inconsistently and, thus, violates the ban on "cruel and unusual punishments" specified by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. ?Todays administration of the death penalty, Breyer writes, ?involves three fundamental constitutional defects: (1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penaltys penological purpose. Perhaps as a result, (4) most places within the United States have abandoned its use. This volume contains Breyer's dissent in the case of Glossip v. Gross, which involved an unsuccessful challenge to Oklahoma's use of a lethal-injection drug because it might cause severe pain. Justice Breyer's legal citations have been edited to make them understandable to a general audience, but the text retains the full force of his powerful argument that the time has come for the Supreme Court to revisit the constitutionality of the death penalty. Breyer was joined in his dissent from the bench by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their passionate argument has been cited by many legal experts including fellow Justice Antonin Scalia?as signaling an eventual Court ruling striking down the death penalty. A similar dissent in 1963 by Breyer's mentor, Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, helped set the stage for a later ruling, imposing what turned out to be a four-year moratorium on executions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815728891/?tag=2022091-20
( Charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Con...)
Charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution, the Supreme Court has the awesome power to strike down laws enacted by our elected representatives. Why does the public accept the Courts decisions as legitimate and follow them, even when those decisions are highly unpopular? What must the Court do to maintain the publics faith? How can it help make our democracy work? In this groundbreaking book, Justice Stephen Breyer tackles these questions and more, offering an original approach to interpreting the Constitution that judges, lawyers, and scholars will look to for many years to come.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307390837/?tag=2022091-20
( When you purchase a new version of this casebook from t...)
When you purchase a new version of this casebook from the LIFT Program, you receive 1-year FREE digital access to the corresponding Examples & Explanations in your course area. Now available in an interactive study center, Examples & Explanations offer hypothetical questions complemented by detailed explanations that allow you to test your knowledge of the topics covered in class. Starting July 1, 2017, if your new casebook purchase does not come with an access code on the inside cover of the book, please contact Wolters Kluwer customer service. The email address and phone number for customer service are on the copyright page, found within the first few pages, of your casebook. An outstanding author team examines administrative procedure and policy in light of substantive policy issues, such as public health and safety, environmental protections, and the regulation of the economy. Questions, notes, and problems support fruitful analysis of Supreme Court decisions, administrative acts, and matters of contemporary debate. Features: • Revised materials on presidential appointment and removal • E-rulemaking, the Obama Administrations transparency and openness initiatives, and new technologies • Material on the Information Quality Act, midnight regulations, and guidance documents • A new section on global administrative law • Significant new Supreme Court decisions • Streamlined Notes and Questions
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( In this original, far-reaching, and timely book, Justic...)
In this original, far-reaching, and timely book, Justice Stephen Breyer examines the work of the Supreme Court of the United States in an increasingly interconnected world, a world in which all sorts of activity, both public and privatefrom the conduct of national security policy to the conduct of international tradeobliges the Court to understand and consider circumstances beyond Americas borders. Written with unique authority and perspective, The Court and the World reveals an emergent reality few Americans observe directly but one that affects the life of every one of us. Here is an invaluable understanding for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1101912073/?tag=2022091-20
( This book will become the bible of regulatory reform. N...)
This book will become the bible of regulatory reform. No broad, authoritative treatment of the subject has been available for many years except for Alfred Kahn's Economics of Regulation (197O). And Stephen Breyer's book is not merely a utilitarian analysis or a legal discussion of procedures; it employs the widest possible perspective to survey the full implications of government regulation?economic, legal, administrative, political?while addressing the complex problems of administering regulatory agencies. Only a scholar with Judge Breyer's practical experience as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee could have accomplished this task. He develops an ingenious original system for classifying regulatory activities according to the kinds of problems that have called for, or have seemed to call for, regulation; he then examines how well or poorly various regulatory regimes remedy these market defects. This enables him to organize an enormous amount of material in a coherent way, and to make significant and useful generalizations about real-world problems. Among the regulatory areas he considers are health and safety; environmental pollution, trucking, airlines, natural gas, public utilities, and telecommunications. He further gives attention to related topics such as cost-of-service ratemaking, safety standards, antitrust, and property rights. Clearly this is a book whose time is here?a veritable how-to-do-it book for administration deregulators, legislators, and the judiciary; and because it is comprehensive and superbly organized, with a wealth of highly detailed examples, it is practical for use in law schools and in courses on economics and political science.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674753763/?tag=2022091-20
Stephen Gerald Breyer was born on August 15, 1938, in San Francisco. His father was an attorney for the San Francisco School Board and his mother was active in Democratic political circles. Upon his appointment to the court, Breyer was quoted as saying he was moved by the fact that he was able to rise so highly in America considering that his grandfather, a cobbler, came to the country just two generations ago.
A brilliant student, Breyer attended Stanford University, choosing it over Harvard at the request of his parents, and graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa member with highest honors. He then studied at Oxford University in England as a prestigious Marshall Scholar. He received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard.
Upon graduation, Breyer became a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. After a stint at the U. S. Department of Justice between 1965 and 1967, Breyer returned to Cambridge, where he taught law at Harvard. But "he is no stranger to Washington politics, " the Boston Globe noted of him upon his appointment to the Supreme Court. That is because in 1973 he was involved in the biggest political story of the century: Watergate, the scandal that revealed then-President Richard M. Nixon's role in the break-in of Democratic Party headquarters at Washington's Watergate Hotel. Breyer became part of the special prosecutor's force led by his former law professor, Archibald Cox. That job led to the position of assistant special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1975. Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, who once chaired the committee, named Breyer as chief counsel in 1979. The Judiciary Committee is the same group that, 19 years later, held hearings and voted on Breyer's confirmation to the Supreme Court. The Boston Globe reported that one reason for Breyer's success before Judiciary was because "most of the lawmakers have longstanding ties to Breyer from his days as the committee's legal counsel. " Appointed to Court of Appeals After the 1980 elections, President Jimmy Carter, who had lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan, made his final judicial appointment before leaving office; he chose Breyer to serve on the U. S. Court of Appeals. Republicans, who could have opposed the nomination and allowed Reagan to pick his own nominee, did not oppose Breyer. Breyer would become chief judge of the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston in 1990. Once on the bench, Breyer began to develop the legal reputation that would lead to his Supreme Court nomination. Legal scholars describe his decisions in numerous cases before the appeals court as reasoned and moderate, and lacking passion. "Breyer has not used his writings to launch a perceptible constitutional manifesto, " the Boston Globe opined in an article analyzing Breyer's "paper trail" of opinions. He has adhered to the theory that cases need not be decided within the strict formal structures of a particular law; that is, Breyer has been known to consider not just the laws Congress has made, but the "legislative intent" behind those laws. He looks at the legislative history of the struggle to pass a law, and what congressmen and senators meant the law to do when issuing his rulings. He has also been known to consider the effects of his rulings in the future, and not just consider past precedents. "Law requires both a heart and a head, " the New York Times quoted him as saying during his confirmation hearings. Observers say that such opinions fly directly in the faces of other sitting justices, such as Antonin Scalia, who is regarded as forming decisions based on strict interpretations of the law. While Breyer may not be able to win over Scalia to his views, he is seen as a "coalition builder, " someone who will occupy the political center of the court and woo other, centrist-leaning justices to his way of thinking. Or, as the Boston Globe reported, "Breyer's capacity for consensus-building causes some court analysts to believe he could lead a new moderate-liberal coalition. " On the First Circuit court he found that a federally-imposed "gag order" preventing family-planning clinics from providing abortion counseling was unconstitutional; it violated free speech provisions. He also wrote a majority decision that rejected the federal government's requirement that doctors working for the World Health Organization go through a "loyalty check. " Allowing the government to examine someone's political leanings as a basis for judging loyalty violated that person's free speech rights, Breyer ruled. He also has a strong environmental record: in 1983 he ruled that oil companies and the federal government had no right to allow oil exploration in the environmentally sensitive George's Bank fishing area off the coast of Massachusetts. Breyer is much more conservative when it comes to criminal cases. He has allowed improper police testimony to stand in a drug case, calling the police error "harmless" in light of the strong evidence against the drug dealers. Even friends, such as noted Harvard Law School professor and celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz, have expressed displeasure with some aspects of Breyer's opinions. Breyer's best known-and most controversial-work in the field of criminality occurred in 1987 when he served on the U. S. Sentencing Commission, a group dedicated to reviewing what sort of jail time criminals should receive across America. The commission's set of proposals drew mixed reviews, with some crediting Breyer for finally getting something down on paper after extensive meetings. But others say the guidelines are too strict, that they do not allow judges enough flexibility, and that in some instances the proposed sentences are too harsh. During the interview process it became clear that Breyer had done what other recently rejected government nominees had done: he had failed to pay Social Security taxes on his part-time housekeeper. The same oversight forced Clinton to reject his first two choices for attorney general: Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood. Clinton eventually chose Ruth Bader Ginsburg over Breyer for the Supreme Court. But a year later, when Clinton chose Breyer to fill the seat of Justice Harry Blackmun, Breyer, quoted in the Boston Globe, was able to joke to the president, "I'm glad I didn't bring my bicycle down. "After being passed over in favor of Ginsburg in June of 1993, Breyer returned to Boston. Although many of his friends were critical of the way Clinton had dangled the job before Breyer and had made him travel while still feeling the ill effects of his bicycle accident, Breyer remained reserved and uncritical. After the rejection, according to the Wall Street Journal, Breyer called his friends, "cheering them up, rather than vice versa. " He returned to Boston to continue work on his biggest, non-legal project: helping design and construct a new $200 million federal courthouse in Boston. According to all reports, Breyer threw himself into the project: interviewing and choosing architects, meeting with community groups, even visiting courts around the country that he and the architect either admired or wanted to avoid duplicating. In the end, the worldly and intelligent judge pressed for a courthouse that includes a community meeting hall, art exhibition space, and a restaurant. In May of 1994, when Clinton was forced to fill another vacancy on the court, he returned to Breyer. White House officials were quoted as saying they liked the "classy" way Breyer handled his rejection a year before. Clinton called him "a jurist who I deeply believe will take his place as one of nation's outstanding justices, " according to a report in the Boston Globe. His confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee were not controversial. The biggest concern was Breyer's financials take in Lloyd's of London, the giant insurance firm. Some senators questioned whether Breyer's financial interest in Lloyd's clouded his rulings on environmental cases. If Lloyd's had to pay for certain toxic waste cleanups, the senators wondered how Breyer could rule impartially in those cases. Breyer responded that Lloyd's was not a direct party to any clean-ups he was involved in, but added that he would sell off his investment in the insurance concern anyway. Breyer was also accused by consumer activists, such as Ralph Nader, of siding with big business in all of the antitrust cases on which he ruled. When asked about abortion, he said it was "settled law" that women have a right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling. The committee approved his nomination 18 to 0. In ascending to the Supreme Court, Breyer "beat out" Clinton's other top choice, secretary of the interior Bruce Babbitt. For about a month during the summer of 1994, Washington engaged in a great guessing game about who would get the nomination: Babbitt or Breyer. Babbitt was opposed by many Western senators who did not like his tough stand on cattle-grazing fees. Clinton liked Babbitt, however, because he had said he wanted more than a legal mind on the court; the president wanted someone who would bring a politician's passion to the court. But Babbitt's political disadvantages proved too great. As the Boston Globe reported, "In the end, Breyer's greatest asset was the way he met a key element of Clinton's job description: someone with political skills who could sail through confirmation. " How Breyer would actually fit into the liberal-to-conservative spectrum on the court was unclear; and since his appointment he has been the focus of controversy. Supreme Court justices have a way of surprising the presidents who appointed them to the court; some are more liberal than expected, some more conservative. But most court observers agree that Breyer sits on the opposite spectrum of Antonin Scalia, arguing not so much on political lines, but for a broader interpretation of the law.
( In this original, far-reaching, and timely book, Justic...)
( When you purchase a new version of this casebook from t...)
( Charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Con...)
(Breaking the Vicious Circle is a tour de force that shoul...)
(A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts o...)
( A landmark dissenting opinion arguing against the death...)
( This book will become the bible of regulatory reform. N...)
In supporting Breyer's nomination to the Supreme Court, the Wall Street Journal noted of his 1980 nomination: "Mr. Breyer was the last Carter appointee confirmed by the Senate-confirmed even after the 1980 election because of his bipartisan support. For a president [Clinton] who needs a victory, this choice [of Breyer] is really easy. "
Quotations:
"If you don't have a heart, it becomes a sterile set of rules removed from human problems, and it won't help. If you don't have a head, there's a risk that in trying to decide a particular person's problem in a case that may look fine for that person, you cause trouble for a lot of other people, making their lives yet worse. .. . It's a question of balance. "
"Consensus is important because law is not theoretical; law is a set of opinions and rules that lawyers have to understand, judges have to understand them, and eventually the labor union, the business, small business, everyone else in the country has to understand how they are supposed to act or not act according to the law. "
Stephen Breyer has a brilliant legal mind. However, when those same observers try to label him as either a conservative or a liberal, or attempt to figure out how his decisions and opinions will shape the court, there is little agreement. Breyer is considered a centrist, a man who comes to the nation's highest court unlikely to radically transform the institution. Like President Bill Clinton's other Supreme Court appointment, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Breyer mirrors his president's political style: he has strong convictions, but he is known as much for his spirit of evenhandedness and compromise as for his passionate views on subjects. Evidence of Breyer's centrist views became clear during his July, 1994 confirmation hearings before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. Breyer sailed through the hearings with little rancor from either Republicans or Democrats, and won unanimous approval from the committee. Those hearings were vastly different from the contentious committee meetings that greeted other recent Supreme Court nominees. And, perhaps, Breyer's ability to appease political foes was one of the reasons President Clinton chose him as nominee. He is Jewish, "speaks with a hint of a British accent, " according to the New York Times, and "is more glib than smart and has an impish, often odd, sensibility that could come across as flakiness and could antagonize his potential colleagues on the Supreme Court. Breyer's other major hobby-bicycle riding-probably cost him his first chance at being named to the Supreme Court. In May of 1993, Breyer was being considered to fill the seat of retiring Justice Byron White. But he was hit by a car while bicycling in the Boston area and was hospitalized. During his recuperation, President Clinton summoned the judge to Washington for an interview. The Boston Globe reported him as telling a friend "that he feared his prospects for the job were poor because he was ill at the meeting with the president . .. and nearly fainted afterward. "
Quotes from others about the person
Dershowitz was quoted in the New York Times as saying, "A lot of 'liberal' or 'moderate' judges establish their liberal credentials by supporting women's rights and press rights, which are very popular with their constituencies, and then establish their conservative credentials by an almost knee-jerk, pro-prosecutorial approach in criminal cases. .. . This certainly characterizes . .. Breyer. "
"He has been known to wear the same suit for weeks while focusing on something he considers more important than wardrobe, " the Boston Globe reported.
Stephen Breyer has been married to the former Joanna Haresince 1967. She is the daughter of former British Conservative Party leader Lord John Blackenham. The pair met in Washington, D. C. , and after 16 years of marriage Joanna Breyer went back to school and received a Ph. D. in psychology. She works at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with children stricken with cancer. The Breyers own 160 acres in Plainfield, New Hampshire, and often visit there to hike. The couple have three grown children.
