Books : The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

Rating: - Legal Politics
A legal analyst with CNN News and a graduate of Harvard, Jeffrey Toobin brings forth an account and supberb evaluation of how he sees the Supreme Court at present which has resulted in his individual interviews with these justices.
The election of 2008 for a new President might very well change the status of our Judicial System. It is important to keep in mind that all members of the Supreme Court, the highest body in the United States, are appointed by the current President and confirmed by the Senate. In addition, the President selects individuals who share his idealogical views.
I recommend Mr. Toobin's "The Nine" to those who are interested in law and politics and what the Supreme Court is today.

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Rating: - Not so much inside, as its impact on the outside and how to get in
I liked this book a lot, it concerns the Supreme Court personalities and impacts from the mid Eighties to 2006, though the bulk of the book concentrates on the Clinton/Bush era. I read it after Woodward's `the Brethren', which deals with the years 1968-73. The tenures of the justices are so long, that this book is almost a continuation. The processes of picking and adjudicating cases are the same as described in the Brethren, as is the processes by which majorities opinions are shaped and preserved. However Chief Justice Rhenquist seems to have taken pride in the running a far more efficient process than his predecessor. One key difference seems to be that there is a more explicit process of caballing to ensure that a particular opinion becomes the majority, though still informal, it seems to be a more acknowledged behaviour than in the early 1970s.
The book's main focus is the political impact of the decisions taken - particularly on the `culture wars', and the more focused approach (particularly among Republicans) on getting candidates selected and approved who will take a conservative line.
The Rhenquist court, despite having 8 of 9 justices who were appointed by Republican presidents, was a disappointment to conservatives who wished to reverse the `liberal' trend of its predecessor courts. However, due in part to Rhenquist's focus on efficiency rather than philosophy and the peculiarly individualistic natures of Justice Scalia and Thomas, the courts opinions were influenced by those of Justice O'Connor; whose views were decidedly middle-of-the road - not against restricting abortion, but ensuring that the mother's health was given paramount consideration; not against school prayer as long as it wasn't promoted by school authorities; not in favour of forced integration, but in favour of desegration; not in favour of gay practice, but an upholder of rights to privacy, incorporating sexual orientation
The book is quite good on giving pen portraits of the character and concerns of each of the justices, and shows what a varied bunch they are. It is particularly good at demonstrating how the work, and its associated experiences, have changed Justices O'Connor, Stevens and Kennedy, while leaving Justices Souter, Scalia and Thomas almost unchanged. It's most telling impression on me was that both the Clinton (Ginsburg and Breyer) and Bush (Jnr) appointees (Roberts and Alito) were much more heavily scrutinised and their subsequent opinions were much more predictable, than previous appointees - Stevens,O'Connor and Souter were viewed a `squelches' by conservatives, appointed by Ford, Regan and Bush (Snr) respectively, they were viewed as having veered `leftward' upon appointment.
I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the political machinations around the appointment process of new justices, from Bork onwards. Bush Snr's approach seemed detached, Clinton's haphazard and chaotic approach, while Bush Jnr's was focused and ruthless, but also impersonal, in the sense that it seemed run by a selection team rather than a personal priority.
The book is best on the processes by which Bush vs. Gore was decided. Toobin is of the view that the Court shamed itself on this. I found this argument convincing, it seems the court intervened early, and the Justices took pre-determined positions, in short became too political. However there is also an argument that if the Court was to decide on a vote, then it had to do so, rather than let the re-counts and re-runs continue until chaos ensued. However, given the Republican appointed majority and the partisan process by which the court was invited to decide the case, I think I agree with Toobin that it was this Courts least fine hour, and indeed tainted this set of Justices in relations to their predecessors.

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Rating: - More of a gossip description of the justiices
I felt that this book took more of a gossip description of the justices--who likes eachother, who tried to set up eachother on dates, who hated eachother. That could have been fine as an addendum but I wanted more meat on the issues and how each jusitce came to form their opinion and their stand.

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Rating: - Informative
If you've ever wanted to know what happens in the cloistered world of the Supreme Court, this book will give you a brief glimpse. It details not just the kinds of cases that the Supreme Court has heard over the last 30 years, but also what kind of people the Supreme Court Justices are and where they came from. Others have suggested there's a bias in this book, but I fail to see it. If the author spends a great deal of time talking about what conservatives were up to in filling the current nine seats, it's only because the last 30 years have been dominated by conservative presidents attempting to satisfy their conservative base. Anyway I found this book quite eye opening, and I hope anyone who is interested in how the Supreme Court works will give it a read.

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Rating: - 3.5 out of 5
The Nine is an in-depth portrayal of the current Supreme Court. Not only does Toobin cover the personality quirks and politics of the individual justices and their relationships with each other over time, he also analyzes the development and the current state of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on key issues like abortion, gay rights, and affirmative action. Other than a few interesting bits of trivia, I didn't really learn anything new from The Nine, but I was entertained, and I think this book is a good introduction to the Supreme Court for those without much previous exposure.