Better Judgment : How Three Judges Are Bringing Justice Back to the Courts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holding, Reynolds.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Judicial process--United States.

Judicial process.

Judicial power--United States.

Judicial power.

Judges--United States.

Judges.

Justice, Administration of--United States.

Justice, Administration of.

Courts--United States.

Courts.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (322 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2025.

Summary:

The weakening of the federal courts⎯and how they can restore their power and Americans' access to justice⎯told through the lives of three remarkable judges. Despite the outsize public attention paid to the Supreme Court, federal trial courts are at the heart of US democracy. Through the stories of Jed Rakoff, Martha Vázquez, and Carlton Reeves, lawyer and acclaimed journalist Reynolds Holding recounts how the erosion of federal court power and people's ability to seek justice has undermined our constitutional system and charts a way to repair the damage done. Combining archival and legal records with hours of intimate interviews with the principal characters and their clerks, colleagues, friends, and families, he animates the lives and work of the judges who are the first, and usually only, stop for ordinary people seeking justice. Over the past six decades, the federal courts have been constrained⎯by Congress, by the executive, and especially by the Supreme Court⎯to the point where they can no longer do what we count on them to do. Holding makes the bold case that judges are good for democracy and should have more power, not less. In Better Judgment, he offers a lively, up-close judicial biography of resistance.

Contents:

Cover

Series Editor

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Prologue

1. Heroes

2. Dear Top Banana

3. I Can Do This

4. Justice on Trial

5. What a Judge Does

6. Opening the Courthouse Doors

7. You Will Be Heard

8. Neither Admit nor Deny

9. No Life Wasted

10. Pure Gaslighting

11. The Troublemaker Prevails

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-520-39662-6

OCLC:

1521495123