Thursday, December 20, 2018

JSCH 43:3

We’ve been enjoying the latest issue of (43:3) of the Journal of Supreme Court History:
Introduction, Melvin I Urofsky

What Say the Reeds at Runnymede? Magna Carta in Supreme Court History, Derek A. Webb

Bank of the United States v. Deveaux and the Birth of Constitutional Rights for Corporations, Adam Winkler

Clerking for “God’s Grandfather”: Chauncy Belknap’s Year with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Todd C. Pepper, Ira Brad Matesky, Elizabeth R. Williams, and Jessica Winn

The Sit-In Cases: Explaining the Great Aberration of the Warren Court, by Christopher W. Schmidt

Craig Alan Smith, Sitting by Designation: Retired Justice Tom C. Clark’s Federal Court Service
The book reviews consist of  the latest installment of Donald Grier Stephenson, Jr.’s “Judicial Bookshelf” and Charles F. Hobson’s review essay on Paul Finkelman’s Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court (Harvard University Press, 2018).

In particular, the excerpts from Belknap’s diary on OT 1915 are engrossing.  I suppose they mostly confirm what we already know about Holmes, but still the remarks Belknap records vivify a great judicial icon.