Ian Millhiser - Injustices

This books is a look at the history of the Supreme Court from the vantage point of its tragic decisions, and the court has made many of them over the decades.  The bad decisions have always favored the wealthy and the privileged over the average American.  In the author's words, the Court has a history of "comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted."

The first calamity was the misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment.  To the extent that this amendment meant to put the states under the Bill of Rights the Court, for decades, did not see this way and favored business over individuals.  It was not not until about 1937 that the 14th started to be interpreted as originally intended.

As an Alabamian I am proud to note that Justice Hugo Black of Alabama was the leading champion of incorporating the Bill of Rights to the states.

"This was the law that the Supreme Court had made by the onset of the Great Depression.  Dissent was dangerous.  Sweatshops enjoyed the blessing of the courts.  Children labored from dusk until dawn in the deadliest factories.  And women could be mutilated according to the whims of the government."  P. 126

"And, although Black would be an old man before many parts of his quest to apply the Bill of Rights universally to the states were realized, he would live to see nearly all of his dream fulfilled.  By the time an elderly Black left the court in 1971, he and his fellow justices held that nearly every one of the BOR's safeguards extended over state law."  P. 166

"Indeed, in the end, the most important thing the Warren Court did to advance racial justice was not the Warren decision.  It was its willingness to get out of the way once Congress decided to confront Jim Crow."  P. 179

Court opponents of the Affordable Health Care Act sought to eliminate the law enacted by the people's democratically elected representatives even though the law did not violate any specific or special provision of the Constitution.  P. 261

It is not unusual for arguments with no basis in the Constitution or precedent to receive five votes in the Supreme Court.  P. 266