"This book explores the Supreme Court from a variety of perspectives, beginning with how the court does its work and proceeding to look at the current court: the individual justices, their complex interactions with and influences on their colleagues, their jurisprudence -- that is, the principles and philosophies that govern their thinking -- and how their opinions, concurrences, and dissents not only apply constitutional law but shape it."--Preface.

"Edition statement supplied by publisher."--Verso of title page. Series previously published by H. W. Wilson, a division of EBSCO Information Services.

Benched: the Supreme Court and the struggle for judicial independence /Jill Lepore -- Pt. I. The Court and its workings : principles and practice : The Constitution of the United States: Article III ; The Federalist, no.78: the Judiciary Department / Publius [Alexander Hamilton] ; May I suggest a few revisions? / Forrest Wickman ; Supreme Court of the United States: Rule 10: Considerations governing review of Writ of Certiorari ; Why did the Court grant Cert in King v. Burwell? / Jonathan Adler ; Three recently accepted cases shed light on the Supreme Court's process for granting review / Vikram David Amar ; Why did Supreme Court punt on same-sex cases? / Tony Mauro ; Who's getting the work at the Supreme Court? / Tony Mauro ; A Supreme Court without Stare Decisis / Orin Kerr ; Supreme Court of the United States: information about opinions ; Writing their wrongs: Supreme Court justices regularly seek to change the errors of their ways / Mark Walsh ; The justices, their papers, and the claims of history / Christopher Schmidt -- Pt. II. The Justices: traditional reserve, contemporary demystification ; John Roberts, chief conservative strategist / Paul M. Barrett ; The devastating, sneaky genius of John Roberts' opinions / Emily Bazelon ; How not to misunderstand Scalia / Cass R. Sunstein ; What is Clarence Thomas thinking? / Garrett Epps -- Ruth Bader Ginsberg's retirement dissent / Amy Davidson ; Active liberty lives! / Adam Winkler ; How Sonia Sotomayor became the Supreme Court's preeminent defender of civil liberties / Scott Lemieux ; Court sense / Colleen Walsh ; Breyer and Scalia debate the role of established practice in constitutional interpretation / Christopher Schmidt ; Time to fix, or scrap, the confirmation hearings / Andrew Cohen ; Yale, Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Columbia: the thing that scares me most about the Supreme Court / Dahlia Lithwick ; How judges think: a conversation with Judge Richard Posner / Jonathan Masur -- Pt. III. Politics and the Court: the Supreme Court and the political landscape : Can the Supreme Court be rescued from politics? / Scott Lemieux ; Politicizing the Supreme Court / Eric Hamilton ; By any means necessary / Linda Greenhouse ; Americans divided on how the Supreme Court should interpret the Constitution / Jocelyn Kiley ; Fault lines re-emerge in Supreme Court at end of term / Joan Biskupic ; Rare unanimity in Supreme Court term, with plenty of fireworks / Nina Totenberg ; Split definitive / Lawrence Baum and Neal Devins -- Pt. IV. Major decision: The Supreme Court's major decisions in historical perspective : Precedent and prologue / Jeffrey Toobin ; 2014 election confirms Citizens United decision based on fundamentally flawed premises / Fred Wertheimer ; Obama wins the battle, Roberts wins the war / Tom Scocca ; Supreme Court's silence on marriage rights speaks volumes / Marcia Coyle ; Why the Supreme Court may finally protect your privacy in the cloud / Andy Greenberg ; Dawn patrol / Richard L. Hasen ; Supreme Court deals major blow to patent trolls / Klint Finley ; The trap in the Supreme Court's "narrow" decisions / Jeffrey Toobin ; Without actually issuing opinions, SCOTUS has already decided a lot / Erwin Chemerinsky ; How the justices move the law / Richard L. Hasen -- Pt. V. Public perceptions of the Court judging the bench : Why the Supreme Court needs term limits / Norm Ornstein ; Cameras and the courtroom dynamic / Nancy Marder ; At Supreme Court, secretiveness attracts snoops / Richard Wolf ; A modest proposal / Christopher Schmidt ; The Supreme Court's baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a problem / Selina MacLaren ; The Supreme Court: the last bastion of American leadership? / Matt K. Lewis ; The Supreme Court's ultimate test / Laurence H. Tribe ; The Supreme Court steps: an architectural dissent Goldberger. Paul