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Author: Steven Harmon Wilson Publisher: University of Georgia Press ISBN: 082032728X Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 577
Book Description
This is the first book-length study of a federal district court to analyze the revolutionary changes in its mission, structure, policies, and procedures over the past four decades. As Steven Harmon Wilson chronicles the court's attempts to keep pace with an expanding, diversifying caseload, he situates those efforts within the social, cultural, and political expectations that have prompted the increase in judicial seats from four in 1955 to the current nineteen. Federal judges have progressed from being simply referees of legal disputes to managers of expanding courts, dockets, and staffs, says Wilson. The Southern District of Texas offers an especially instructive model by which to study this transformation. Not only does it contain a varied population of Hispanics, African Americans, and whites, but its jurisdiction includes an international border and some of the busiest seaports in the United States. Wilson identifies three areas of judicial management in which the shift has most clearly manifested itself. Through docket and case management judges have attempted to rationalize the flow of work through the litigation process. Lastly, and most controversially, judges have sought to bring "constitutionally flawed" institutions into compliance through "structural reform" rulings in areas such as housing, education, employment, and voting. Wilson draws on sources ranging from judicial biography and oral-history interviews to case files, published opinions, and administrative memoranda. Blending legal history with social science, this important new study ponders the changing meaning of federal judgeship as it shows how judicial management has both helped and hindered the resolution of legal conflicts and the protection of civil rights.
Author: Steven Harmon Wilson Publisher: University of Georgia Press ISBN: 082032728X Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 577
Book Description
This is the first book-length study of a federal district court to analyze the revolutionary changes in its mission, structure, policies, and procedures over the past four decades. As Steven Harmon Wilson chronicles the court's attempts to keep pace with an expanding, diversifying caseload, he situates those efforts within the social, cultural, and political expectations that have prompted the increase in judicial seats from four in 1955 to the current nineteen. Federal judges have progressed from being simply referees of legal disputes to managers of expanding courts, dockets, and staffs, says Wilson. The Southern District of Texas offers an especially instructive model by which to study this transformation. Not only does it contain a varied population of Hispanics, African Americans, and whites, but its jurisdiction includes an international border and some of the busiest seaports in the United States. Wilson identifies three areas of judicial management in which the shift has most clearly manifested itself. Through docket and case management judges have attempted to rationalize the flow of work through the litigation process. Lastly, and most controversially, judges have sought to bring "constitutionally flawed" institutions into compliance through "structural reform" rulings in areas such as housing, education, employment, and voting. Wilson draws on sources ranging from judicial biography and oral-history interviews to case files, published opinions, and administrative memoranda. Blending legal history with social science, this important new study ponders the changing meaning of federal judgeship as it shows how judicial management has both helped and hindered the resolution of legal conflicts and the protection of civil rights.
Author: Roberta Sue Alexander Publisher: Ohio University Press ISBN: 0821416022 Category : District courts Languages : en Pages : 441
Book Description
The First History Of A Federal District Court in a midwestern state, A Place of Recourse explains a district court's function and how its mission has evolved. The court has grown from an obscure institution adjudicating minor debt and land disputes to one that plays a central role in the political, economic, and social lives of southern Ohioans. In tracing the court's development, Alexander explores the central issues confronting the district court judges during each historical era. She describes how this court in a non-slave state responded to fugitive slave laws and how a court whose jurisdiction included a major coal-mining region responded to striking workers and the unionization movement. The book also documents judicial responses to Prohibition, New Deal legislation, crime, mass tort litigation, and racial desegregation. The history of a court is also the history of its judges. Accordingly, Alexander provides historical insight on current and past judges. She details behind-the-scenes maneuvers in judicial appointments and also the creativity some judges displayed on the bench - such as Judge Leavitt, who adopted admiralty law to deal with the problems of river traffic. A Pla
Author: Jeffrey B. Morris Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199877653 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 419
Book Description
Leadership on the Federal Bench: The Craft and Activism of Jack Weinstein considers the ways a particularly gifted federal judge seized the opportunities available to district judges to influence the results of the cases before him, and employed the tools available to him to make policy having a national impact. In the book, author Jeffrey Morris considers the ways in which the judge, Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York, has been limited by his position. This book adds to the slim literature about the policy-making role of district judges applying the work of legal historians, political scientists and those trained in the law. Focusing upon an admitted judicial activist - perhaps the most famous, innovative and controversial district judge sitting today - the book permits a close look at activism at the trial level. Leadership on the Federal Bench: The Craft and Activism of Jack Weinstein begins by analyzing the job of a federal district judge and why it is profitable to study Judge Weinstein. Related topics include Weinstein's background before appointment to the bench; the political and legal environment within which Weinstein has judged and the characteristics of the district in which he sat and its possible impact on him. Part of the book focuses on Weinstein's judicial output for each of his four decades on the bench. Cases are drawn from a diverse number of areas, among them the areas of civil rights, freedom of speech, search and seizures, organized crime and political corruption cases, evidence and procedure. Finally, conclusions are made on the role of district courts, judicial activism in general, along with a summary of Judge Weinstein's career.
Author: Charles L. Zelden Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1851097074 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 481
Book Description
This volume in ABC-CLIO's About Federal Government set looks at the history and daily operations of the federal judiciary, from district courts, to courts of appeal, to the Supreme Court. The Judicial Branch of Federal Government: People, Process, and Politics shows how the federal courts act as interpreters of the law, definers of rules, and shapers of policy, covering the judiciary throughout U.S. history and as it functions today. In one concise yet comprehensive resource, The Judicial Branch of Federal Government describes the constitutionally ascribed roles and structures of the courts. It looks at the men and women who serve on the federal bench (who they are and how they are appointed), as well as the fascinating relationship of the federal courts with the legislative and executive branches and with the 50 state court systems.
Author: Christopher P. Banks Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1440841462 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 529
Book Description
How does the American judiciary impact the development of legal and social policies in the United States? How are the state and federal court systems constructed? This book answers these questions and many others regarding politics, the U.S. courts, and society. This single-volume work provides a comprehensive and contemporary treatment of the historical development of state and federal courts that clearly documents how they have evolved into significant political institutions. It addresses vital and highly relevant subjects such as the constitutional origins of courts, the nature of judicial selection and service, and the organization of courts and their administration. The book explains civil and criminal legal proceedings, the political impact of judicial rulings, and the restraints placed upon the exercise of judicial powers. Readers will come away with an understanding of the key principles of constitutional interpretation and judicial review as well as judicial independence, what factors affect access to courts, the underlying politics of state judicial campaigns, and the confirmation of presidential appointments to the federal bench. The book covers historical and contemporary court perspectives on major issues, such as same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act, campaign financing, gun rights, free speech and religious freedom, racial discrimination, affirmative action, criminal procedure and punishments, property rights, and voting rights.
Author: Michael A. Olivas Publisher: Arte Publico Press ISBN: 1558854762 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 399
Book Description
This collection of ten essays commemorates the 50th anniversary of an important but almost forgotten U.S. Supreme court case, Hernandez v. Texas, 347 US 475 (1954), the major case involving Mexican Americans and jury selection, published just before Brown v. Board of Education in the 1954 Supreme Court reporter. This landmark case, the first to be tried by Mexican American lawyers before the U.S. Supreme Court, held that Mexican Americans were a discrete group for purposes of applying Equal Protection. Although the case was about discriminatory state jury selection and trial practices, it has been cited for many other civil rights precedents in the intervening 50 years. Even so, it has not been given the prominence it deserves, in part because it lives in the shadow of the more compelling Brown v. Board case. There had been earlier efforts to diversify juries, reaching back at least to the trial of Gregorio Cortez in 1901 and continuing with efforts by the legendary Oscar Zeta Acosta in Los Angeles in the 1960s. Even as recently as 2005 there has been clear evidence that Latino participation in the Texas jury system is still substantially unrepresentative of the growing population. But in a brief and shining moment in 1954, Mexican-American lawyers prevailed in a system that accorded their community no legal status and no respect. Through sheer tenacity, brilliance, and some luck, they showed that it is possible to tilt against windmills and slay the dragon. Edited and with an introduction by University of Houston law scholar Michael A. Olivas, Colored Men and Hombres Aqui is the first full-length book on this case. This volume contains the papers presented at the Hernandez at 50conference which took place in 2004 at the University of Houston Law Center and also contains source materials, trial briefs, and a chronology of the case.
Author: Walter L. Buenger Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 1603442359 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
In 1991 Walter L. Buenger and the late Robert A. Calvert compiled a pioneering work in Texas historiography: Texas Through Time, a seminal survey and critique of the field of Texas history from its inception through the end of the 1980s. Now, Buenger and Arnoldo De León have assembled an important new collection that assesses the current state of Texas historiography, building on the many changes in understanding and interpretation that have developed in the nearly twenty years since the publication of the original volume. This new work, Beyond Texas Through Time, departs from the earlier volume’s emphasis on the dichotomy between traditionalism and revisionism as they applied to various eras. Instead, the studies in this book consider the topical and thematic understandings of Texas historiography embraced by a new generation of Texas historians as they reflect analytically on the work of the past two decades. The resulting approaches thus offer the potential of informing the study of themes and topics other than those specifically introduced in this volume, extending its usefulness well beyond a review of the literature. In addition, the volume editors’ introduction proposes the application of cultural constructionism as an important third perspective on the thematic and topical analyses provided by the other contributors. Beyond Texas Through Time offers both a vantage point and a benchmark, serving as an important reference for scholars and advanced students of history and historiography, even beyond the borders of Texas.
Author: Bruce A. Glasrud Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press ISBN: 0806147849 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
"'Discovering Texas History' is a historiographical reference book that will be invaluable to teachers, students, and researchers of Texas history. Chapter authors are familiar names in Texas history circles--a 'who's who' of high profile historians. Conceived as a follow-up to the award winning (but increasingly dated) 'A Guide the History of Texas' (1988), 'Discovering Texas History' focuses on the major trends in the study of Texas history since 1990. In part one, topical essays address significant historical themes, from race and gender to the arts and urban history. In part two, chronological essays cover the full span of Texas historiography from the Spanish era to the modern day. In each case, the goal is to analyze and summarize the subjects that have captured the attention of professional historians so that 'Discovering Texas History' will take its place as the standard work on the history of Texas history"--
Author: Jennifer R. Nájera Publisher: University of Texas Press ISBN: 0292767579 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
Throughout much of the twentieth century, Mexican Americans experienced segregation in many areas of public life, but the structure of Mexican segregation differed from the strict racial divides of the Jim Crow South. Factors such as higher socioeconomic status, lighter skin color, and Anglo cultural fluency allowed some Mexican Americans to gain limited access to the Anglo power structure. Paradoxically, however, this partial assimilation made full desegregation more difficult for the rest of the Mexican American community, which continued to experience informal segregation long after federal and state laws officially ended the practice. In this historical ethnography, Jennifer R. Nájera offers a layered rendering and analysis of Mexican segregation in a South Texas community in the first half of the twentieth century. Using oral histories and local archives, she brings to life Mexican origin peoples’ experiences with segregation. Through their stories and supporting documentary evidence, Nájera shows how the ambiguous racial status of Mexican origin people allowed some of them to be exceptions to the rule of Anglo racial dominance. She demonstrates that while such exceptionality might suggest the permeability of the color line, in fact the selective and limited incorporation of Mexicans into Anglo society actually reinforced segregation by creating an illusion that the community had been integrated and no further changes were needed. Nájera also reveals how the actions of everyday people ultimately challenged racial/racist ideologies and created meaningful spaces for Mexicans in spheres historically dominated by Anglos.
Author: Steven Harmon Wilson
Author: Steven Harmon Wilson
Author: Roberta Sue Alexander
Author: Jeffrey B. Morris
Author: Charles L. Zelden
Author: 
Author: Christopher P. Banks
Author: Michael A. Olivas
Author: Walter L. Buenger
Author: Bruce A. Glasrud
Author: Jennifer R. Nájera