Content area
Full Text
The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor
Random House, 2003
This book by Justice O'Connor will no doubt be enjoyed by many readers as a readable and not very heavy discussion of the United States Supreme Court, highlights of its history and personalities, and personal details about O'Connor's own experiences on the Court as the first woman appointed to it.
At this level, the book must be credited as "recommended reading." It contains a number of worthwhile and instructive elements, such as a history of habeas corpus, of Magna Carta, of the jury system, of the "reporter system" early in the Court's history through which its decisions were published, of the women's movement in the United States, and of the role of the privy council in the colonies before the American Revolution.
O'Connor makes a number of valuable suggestions, say, for improving the jury system, such as that jurors should be allowed to take notes and that it shouldn't automatically disqualify a juror to have heard something about the case. She recommends that jurors should he instructed generally about the law applying the case before they hear the testimony, so that they will have a conceptual framework into which to fit the testimony as they hear it. As a lawyer, I have thought for many years that the courts' failure to give jurors such a road map reflected an odd anti-conceptualism, as though ideas don't count. So I am pleased to see her recommendation.
There is a deeper reading of The Majesty of the Law, however, that makes...