Life and Law (ePub)

From one of America's most influential judges comes an inside account of thirty years on the Supreme Court and major cases on abortion, affirmative action, freedom of speech, gay marriage, separation of powers, and federalism.

The most consequential Supreme Court justice of the 21st century has been Anthony M. Kennedy. Unlike his historical peers from Marshall to Warren, his mark was made not by articulating a singular vision of the Constitution, but from the fact that he stood at the ideological center of a deeply divided Court. In a string of landmark rulings, it was Kennedy's distinctive constitutional vision that proved decisive: on abortion (Gonzales and Casey), on gay rights (Obergefell), on freedom of speech (Citizens United), on freedom of religion (Masterpiece Cakeshop), on separation of powers (Zivotofsky II and Boumediene), on affirmative action (Fisher v. University of Texas), on the death penalty (Roper), and more. In these cases, it was Kennedy's written opinion that defined the law of the land. Sometimes, he was writing on behalf of the Court's liberals, other times on behalf of its conservatives.

In Life and Law: The Court Years, he explains his decisions and how he came to them, wrestling with the contrast between his beliefs and what he thought the Constitution actually means. The book is a deep examination of how a judge decides a case and grows intellectually as each new one builds upon the last. It is also the story of how the Supreme Court functions, with vivid portraits of Kennedy's colleagues over the years. Here is the two-man "civility committee" run by Kennedy and John Paul Stevens to make sure Brennan and Scalia made up after arguments, William Rehnquist nursing his sick wife, Byron White and Clarence Thomas's rivalry on the basketball court, and a personal testament to the strength of Sandra Day O'Connor.