Experimental Blog # 162

Comments on "The Roberts Court" - The Struggle for the Constitution by Marcia Coyle

This book is so complicated and detailed that it is very difficult for someone who is not well acquainted with American law and the judicial system to understand rather large parts of it.

The Supreme Court and the American judicial system probably have more to do with American government and politics than many people realize. The White House and its current occupant, the houses of congress, and the public activity of both the Democratic and Republican parties can be so distracting that the real governing, that is control, of the American people through its many courts might sometimes hardly be noticed. People might think that since they never go into them, any of the courts that is; they then have nothing to do with them.

There are so many laws passed by so many governing bodies, and the acts of the federal government can be so long, even 2 or 3 thousand pages, that millions of American citizens and their lawyers can continuously find ways to question the "constitutionality" of laws and acts of all kinds that they don't like. Or, at least, so it seems.

It is tempting to say that the "brains", or intelligence, of the American government, that means control, are concentrated in its juducial system; with the Supreme Court at the top. The well thought out arguments carried out before the 9 Supreme Court justices, and involving them, too, must be among the best examples of America's strongest minds; or, at least, strongest in the use of carefully chosen words in carefully composed sentences.