"Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact," Volumes 1 and 2, covers twenty-four Supreme Court cases (twelve per volume) that have shaped American constitutional law. Interpretive chapters shed light on the nuances of each case, the individuals involved, and the social, political, and cultural context at that particular moment in history. Discussing cases from nearly every decade in a two-hundred-year span, Melvin I. Urofsky expounds on the political climate of the United States from the country's infancy through the new millennium. Featuring "Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Miranda v. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education, " and many more, this text covers foundational rulings and more recent decisions. Written with students in mind, Melvin I. Urofsky's voice offers compelling and fascinating accounts of American legal milestones.
"Supreme Decisions" can be purchased as a single combined volume or conveniently split into two volumes, providing a breadth of information for survey courses in U.S. Constitutional History.

This volume provides in a single source a thorough grounding in the origin, development, and current controversies surrounding the free practice of religion. The first boatloads of European settlers did not come to America advocating religious tolerance. They came seeking the freedom to practice their own religion. Other sects, they believed, were wrong at best and, at worst, not to be tolerated. The question of what constitutes "legitimate," constitutionally protected religious practice has been debated ever since. Does it include the use of peyote? Polygamy? Refusing medical care for a sick child? Freedom of Religion follows the evolving understanding of the concept of religious freedom from Great Britain to the New World, through hundreds of U.S. courtrooms, to the volatile modern-day issues of school prayer and faith-based initiatives. The thorough, responsible, and cool-headed analysis presented here offers readers a solid grounding in the constitutional issues behind the headlines. Four chapters discuss the development of religious freedom from its roots in tribal societies through key court decisions of the 1990s A chronology outlines significant events and court decisions from 1776 to 2001, and a table lists all of the pertinent cases alphabetically

Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact, Volumes 1, covers twenty-four Supreme Court cases that have shaped American constitutional law. Interpretive chapters shed light on the nuances of each case, the individuals involved, and the social, political, and cultural context at that particular moment in history. Discussing cases from nearly every decade in a two-hundred-year span, Melvin I. Urofsky expounds on the political climate of the United States from the country's infancy through the new millennium. Featuring Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Miranda v. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education, and many more, this text covers foundational rulings and more recent decisions. Written with students in mind, Melvin I. Urofsky's voice offers compelling and fascinating accounts of American legal milestones.

Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact, covers twenty-four Supreme Court cases (twelve per volume) that have shaped American constitutional law. Interpretive chapters shed light on the nuances of each case, the individuals involved, and the social, political, and cultural context at that particular moment in history. Discussing cases from nearly every decade in a two-hundred-year span, Melvin I. Urofsky expounds on the political climate of the United States from the country's infancy through the new millennium. Featuring Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Miranda v. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education, and many more, this text covers foundational rulings and more recent decisions. Written with students in mind, Melvin I. Urofsky's voice offers compelling and fascinating accounts of American legal milestones.

Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact, Volumes 1 and 2, covers twenty-four Supreme Court cases (twelve per volume) that have shaped American constitutional law. Interpretive chapters shed light on the nuances of each case, the individuals involved, and the social, political, and cultural context at that particular moment in history. Discussing cases from nearly every decade in a two-hundred-year span, Melvin I. Urofsky expounds on the political climate of the United States from the country's infancy through the new millennium. Featuring Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Miranda v. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education, and many more, this text covers foundational rulings and more recent decisions. Written with students in mind, Melvin I. Urofsky's voice offers compelling and fascinating accounts of American legal milestones.

A survey and analysis of the historical context, key figures, and lasting legacy of the Warren Court. Earl Warren served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1953 until the end of the tumultuous 1960s. This book shows why conservative critics still view this court as out of control and leftist, while its liberal fans still cheer what they view as the court's progressive activism. Among this court's contributions to American life are the rights accorded to the accused in Miranda v. Arizona, the limits it placed on school prayer, and the abolition of school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. To understand such basic American principles as equal protection, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, the rights of the accused, and the right to privacy, every citizen should understand the Warren Court.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact," Volumes 1 and 2, covers twenty-four Supreme Court cases (twelve per volume) that have shaped American constitutional law. Interpretive chapters shed light on the nuances of each case, the individuals involved, and the social, political, and cultural context at that particular moment in history. Discussing cases from nearly every decade in a two-hundred-year span, Melvin I. Urofsky expounds on the political climate of the United States from the country's infancy through the new millennium. Featuring "Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Miranda v. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education, " and many more, this text covers foundational rulings and more recent decisions. Written with students in mind, Melvin I. Urofsky's voice offers compelling and fascinating accounts of American legal milestones.
"Supreme Decisions" can be purchased as a single combined volume or conveniently split into two volumes, providing a breadth of information for survey courses in U.S. Constitutional History.

As the 2020s began, protestors filled the streets, politicians clashed over how to respond to a global pandemic, and new scrutiny was placed on what rights US citizens should be afforded. Newly revised and expanded to address immigration, gay rights, privacy rights, affirmative action, and more, The Bill of Rights in Modern America provides clear insights into the issues currently shaping the United States. Essays explore the law and history behind contentious debates over such topics as gun rights, limits on the powers of law enforcement, the death penalty, abortion, and states' rights. Accessible and easy to read, the discerning research offered in The Bill of Rights in Modern America will help inform critical discussions for years to come.

As the 2020s began, protestors filled the streets, politicians clashed over how to respond to a global pandemic, and new scrutiny was placed on what rights US citizens should be afforded. Newly revised and expanded to address immigration, gay rights, privacy rights, affirmative action, and more, The Bill of Rights in Modern America provides clear insights into the issues currently shaping the United States. Essays explore the law and history behind contentious debates over such topics as gun rights, limits on the powers of law enforcement, the death penalty, abortion, and states' rights. Accessible and easy to read, the discerning research offered in The Bill of Rights in Modern America will help inform critical discussions for years to come.

"Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact," Volumes 1 and 2, covers twenty-four Supreme Court cases (twelve per volume) that have shaped American constitutional law. Interpretive chapters shed light on the nuances of each case, the individuals involved, and the social, political, and cultural context at that particular moment in history. Discussing cases from nearly every decade in a two-hundred-year span, Melvin I. Urofsky expounds on the political climate of the United States from the country's infancy through the new millennium. Featuring "Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Miranda v. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education, " and many more, this text covers foundational rulings and more recent decisions. Written with students in mind, Melvin I. Urofsky's voice offers compelling and fascinating accounts of American legal milestones.
"Supreme Decisions" can be purchased as a single combined volume or conveniently split into two volumes, providing a breadth of information for survey courses in U.S. Constitutional History.

Rarely does the Supreme Court reverse itself as quickly and profoundly as it did in recent campaign finance cases, with the Citizens United decision of 2010 undoing the constraints of the McCain-Feingold Act upheld in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003). And rarely have the stakes seemed so high, as billionaires vie for elected office and dark money floods political campaigns. In timely fashion, this new edition updates Melvin Urofsky's classic study of campaign finance law, bringing his cogent analysis of the relevant statutes and court cases up to date. Urofsky explains in clear and convincing language what was - and is - at stake in the twists and turns of campaign finance laws taken up by the nation's highest court in the past decades. Beginning with Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and moving through McConnell, Citizens United, and finally McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014), Urofsky discusses the two principles at issue in these cases: freedom of political speech, and the protection of the political process from undue influence. Conventional wisdom holds that in such cases liberals want greater restrictions and conservatives want corporations to have greater freedom to influence voters. But working from a rich store of primary sources, probing the motivations and ideas of all participants in the campaign finance legal story, Urofsky reveals a far more complex picture, one whose significance transcends simple political ideologies. In a time of controversies over political speech in the blogosphere, social media, and cable news, and claims of electoral fraud, The Campaign Finance Cases offers a much-needed, balanced account of how issues critical to American democracy figure in the adjudication of campaign finance law, and how a changing political and media landscape might alter the process.

Illuminating a classic case from the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960s, two of America's foremost legal historians--Kermit Hall and Melvin Urofsky--provide a compact and highly readable updating of one of the most memorable decisions in the Supreme Court's canon.

When the "New York Times" published an advertisement that accused Alabama officials of willfully abusing civil rights activists, Montgomery police commissioner Lester Sullivan filed suit for defamation. Alabama courts, citing factual errors in the ad, ordered the "Times" to pay half a million dollars in damages. The "Times" appealed to the Supreme Court, which had previously deferred to the states on libel issues. The justices, recognizing that Alabama's application of libel law threatened both the nation's free press and equal rights for African Americans, unanimously sided with the "Times."

As memorably recounted twenty years ago in Anthony Lewis's "Make No Law," the 1964 decision profoundly altered defamation law, which the Court declared must not hinder debate on public issues even if it includes "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." The decision also introduced a new First Amendment test: a public official cannot recover damages for libel unless he proves that the statement was made with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false.

Hall and Urofsky, however, place a new emphasis on this iconic case. Whereas Lewis's book championed freedom of the press, the authors here provide a stronger focus on civil rights and southern legal culture. They convey to readers the urgency of the civil rights movement and the vitriolic anger it inspired in the Deep South. Their insights place this landmark case within a new and enlightening frame.

In two 1997 decisions, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. Yet for many people this concept strikes to the heart of our sense of liberty even as it tugs at our hearts in the face of human suffering.

"Lethal Judgments" examines those cases, the law surrounding the plaintiffs' claims, and the moral debate over physician-assisted suicide. A concise and gracefully written overview of one of the most complex and contentious areas of American law, it lays out the conflict between individuals supporting privacy rights, due process, and equal protection, and those for whom moral and ethical considerations trump such concepts.

Noted constitutional scholar Melvin Urofsky discusses the tangled legal, historical, ethical, and medical issues related to right-to-die arguments, then examines the Supreme Court's position in Washington v. Glucksberg and Quill v. Vacco. He shows how these 1997 cases relate to two other famous cases-Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Beth Cruzan-and carries the controversy up to the recent trials of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Urofsky considers the many facets of this knotty argument. He differentiates between discontinuation of medical treatment, assisted suicide, and active euthanasia, and he sensitively examines the issue's social and religious contexts to enable readers to see both sides of the dispute. He also shows that in its ruling the Supreme Court did not slam the door on the subject but left it ajar by allowing states to legislate on the matter as Oregon has already done.

By treating assisted suicide simply as a legal question, observes Urofsky, we miss the real importance of the issue. For patients with AIDS, cancer, and other debilitating illnesses--or even for those feeble from age--physician-assisted suicide is an expression of personal autonomy, and as modern medicine learns new ways to prolong life, more and more people will seek to exercise this option. Because right-to-die cases are likely to come before the high court again, this book provides students and general readers with a timely appreciation of their importance for legal theory and a useful way to reflect upon the choice between life and death.

Division and Discord offers a comprehensive appraisal of the Supreme Court during the fractious period that bridged the court-packing fight of the Hughes years and the rights explosion of the Warren era. During the dozen years that Melvin I. Urofsky reviews in this volume, the Court ruled on a range of controversial cases, including the internment of the Japanese, the guilt of the Rosenbergs, and the crimes of Nazi saboteurs. At the same time the judicial body struggled internally to balance the strong wills of some of the most important figures in U.S. judicial history--Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, and Robert H. Jackson. Urofsky contends that these years play a critical role in modern constitutional history and are not merely a colorful interlude between two better-known eras of Supreme Court history. These years signaled a fundamental upheaval in U.S. jurisprudence--the shift in focus from the protection of private property to the protection of individual liberties.