Greenhouse, Linda

"[The author] draws on her . . . knowledge of the court's history and of its written and unwritten rules to show readers how the Supreme Court really works. How do cases get to the Supreme Court? How do the justices go about deciding them? What special role does the chief justice play? What do the law clerks do? [She] answers these questions by depicting the justices as they confront deep constitutional issues andwrestle with the meaning of confusing federal statutes. Throughout, the author examines many individual Supreme Court cases to illustrate points under discussion, and she also makes useful comparisons with foreign courts"--OCLC.

The author presents an in-depth study of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1970 to 1994, and chronicles his life and years of service on the Court, several landmark decisions of which he was a part, his own views regarding abortion, the death penalty, and affirmative action, and much more.