Updated in a new 9th edition, this casebook explores civil liberty problems through a study of leading judicial decisions. It offers a reasonable sample of cases across a broad spectrum of rights and liberties. This book introduces groups of featured cases with in-depth commentaries that set the specific historical-legal context of which they are a part, allowing readers to examine significant portions of court opinions, including major arguments from majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions.

Updated in a new 9th edition, this casebook explores civil liberty problems through a study of leading judicial decisions. It offers a reasonable sample of cases across a broad spectrum of rights and liberties. This book introduces groups of featured cases with in-depth commentaries that set the specific historical-legal context of which they are a part, allowing readers to examine significant portions of court opinions, including major arguments from majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions.

Israel’s victory in the 1967 ‘Six Day War’ sowed the seeds of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. At 1400hrs on 6 October 1973 the Egyptian army launched an assault crossing of the Suez Canal. The carefully co-ordinated attack achieved complete tactical surprise. The sand embankments of the Israeli Bar-Lev Line were breached and an Israeli counterattack thrown back with heavy losses. In the second of his two-volume analysis of the Yom Kippur War, Simon Dunstan details the fighting in the Sinai, culminating in Operation Gazelle, the Israeli counterattack across the Suez Canal. Although defeated militarily Egypt did ultimately succeed in forcing the Israelis back to the negotiating table.

There are more than 600 Federal district judges serving today, and they decide some 230,000 civil cases each year. About 90% of the decisions they reach are final. Lyles argues that these lower court judges not only influence the flow of information to the judicial hierarchy, but they formulate questions that influence how higher courts, including the Supreme Court, respond. As such they are key elements in the formulation and implementation of public policy. To cite a few examples, they desegregate school districts, run mental institutions and prisons, break up monopolies, and reapportion legislatures. Lyles begins by examining the structure and function of federal courts and detailing the history, operation, and purpose of the district courts. He then turns to the selection, nomination, and appointment of district judges. Lyles then analyzes the extent to which presidents might advance policy objectives through their judicial appointments to the district courts. After examining how African-American, Latino, and white judges, male and female, view their roles as policy actors, Lyles concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study. Important for students and scholars of contemporary public policy and the court system.