The Will of the Individuals: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court docket and Formed the That means of the Structure

Lately, the justices of the Supreme Court docket have dominated definitively on such points as abortion, faculty prayer, and navy tribunals within the struggle on terror. They determined certainly one of American historical past’s most contested presidential elections. But for all their energy, the justices by no means face election, and maintain their places of work for all times. This mix of affect and obvious unaccountability has led many to complain that there’s something illegitimate―even undemocratic―about judicial authority.

In The Will of the Individuals, Barry Friedman challenges that declare by exhibiting that the Court docket has all the time been topic to the next energy: the American public. Judicial positions have been abolished, the justices’ jurisdiction has been stripped, the Court docket has been packed, and unpopular choices have been defied. For at the least the previous sixty years, the justices have made certain that their choices don’t stray too removed from public opinion.

Friedman’s pathbreaking account of the connection between widespread opinion and the Supreme Court docket―from the Declaration of Independence to the tip of the Rehnquist Court docket in 2005―particulars how the American individuals got here to just accept their most controversial establishment and, in so doing, formed the which means of the Structure.