A leading legal scholar explores how the constitutional right to seek justice has been restricted by the Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court's decisions on constitutional rights are well known and much talked about. But individuals who want to defend those rights need something else as well: access to courts that can rule on their complaints. And on matters of access, the Court's record over the past generation has been almost uniformly hostile to the enforcement of individual citizens' ...

The author and dean of constitutional law offers framework for understanding the US Constitution and the current threats facing democracy.Worried about what a super conservative majority on the Supreme Court means for the future of civil liberties? From gun control to reproductive health, a conservative court will reshape the lives of all Americans for decades to come. The time to develop and defend a progressive vision of the US Constitution that protects the right...

A preeminent constitutional scholar offers a hard-hitting analysis of the Supreme Court over the last two hundred yearsMost Americans share the perception that the Supreme Court is objective, but Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the country’s leading constitutional lawyers, shows that this is nonsense and always has been. The Court is made up of fallible individuals who base decisions on their own biases. Today, the Roberts Court is promoting a conservative agenda under t...

An unprecedented work of civil rights and legal history, Presumed Guilty reveals how the Supreme Court has enabled racist policing and sanctioned law enforcement excesses through its decisions over the last half-century.Police are nine times more likely to kill African-American men than they are other Americans—in fact, nearly one in every thousand will die at the hands, or under the knee, of an officer. As eminent constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky ...

Why originalism is a flawed, incoherent, and dangerously ideological method of constitutional interpretationOriginalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Three of the Supreme Court’s nine justices explicitly embrace the originalist approach, as do increasing numbers of judges ...

A groundbreaking work from one of America’s leading legal scholars, No Democracy Lasts Forever audaciously asserts that the only way a polarized America can avoid secession is to draft a new Constitution.The Constitution has become a threat to American democracy. Due to its inherent flaws—its treatment of race, dependence on a tainted Electoral College, a glaringly unrepresentative Senate, and the outsized influence of the Supreme Court—Erwin Chemerinsky, ...

The Supreme Court’s October 2023 Term was filled with blockbuster decisions that will have a dramatic effect on the law and on people’s lives. The Court created broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken by a president, dramatically limited the power of federal administrative agencies, clarified the meaning of the Second Amendment, and empowered cities to use the criminal law against the unhoused. This concise book reviews the key decisions of October Term 2022 and th...

Both historically and in the present, the Supreme Court has largely been a failureIn this devastating book, Erwin Chemerinsky—“one of the shining lights of legal academia” (The New York Times)—shows how, case by case, for over two centuries, the hallowed Court has been far more likely to uphold government abuses of power than to stop them. Drawing on a wealth of rulings, some famous, others little known, he reviews the Supreme Court’s historic failures in ...

Table of Contents:PrefaceIntroduction to October Term 2021AbortionAdministrative LawCivil Rights LitigationCriminal Law and ProcedureElection LawFederal Court JurisdictionFirst Amendment: Freedom of SpeechFirst Amendment: ReligionImmigration LawIndian LawSecond AmendmentState SecretsConclusion: Looking AheadI...

The 2016 presidential election profoundly reshaped the Supreme Court. President Donald Trump's selection of three justices - Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett - created a solid six-justice conservative majority. The impact was seen a year ago in October Term 2021, Justice Barrett's first full term. The Court overruled Roe v. Wade, dramatically increased the protection for gun rights, found a First Amendment right for a high school football coach to pray publicly on the f...

No Democracy Lasts Forever argues that the Constitution has become a threat to American democracy and must be dramatically changed or replaced if secession is to be avoided.Deeply troubled by the Constitution's inherent flaws, Erwin Chemerinsky, the renowned dean of Berkeley law school, came to the sobering conclusion that our nearly 250-year-old founding document is responsible for the crisis now facing American democracy. Pointing out that just fifte...

Table of ContentsIntroduction to October Term 2020Antitrust and college sportsBankruptcy lawCivil rights litigationCriminal law and procedureFederal court jurisdictionFirst Amendment: Free Exercise of ReligionFirst Amendment: Freedom of SpeechImmigration lawIndian LawIntellectual propertyPersonal jurisdictionSeparation of powersThe...