Closed Chambers

8 Pages 1991 Words

power for un-elected clerks to handle, suggests Lazarus.
Lazarus gives an analysis of the Supreme Court during a period when the he himself worked at the Court. He reveals embarrassing details such as a fight between a liberal and a conservative law clerk, ending up with both parties falling into a fountain. He also gives a broad picture combining interviews with documentary research and personal recollection.
As an example of the ideological divide between the conservative and liberal factions on the Court (Lazarus leaves the impression that the division among the clerks are sharper than the divisions among the judges, at least with respect to those justices of a moderate persuasion), there is an account of a death-penalty case (Tison v. Arizona). Two brothers in Arizona broke their father out of prison. The family then drove around the country, and the father killed four motorists. The brothers got the death penalty because they were associated with the murder. In the Supreme Court, the liberal faction argued that executing the brothers would contradict an earlier decision (Edmund), which reserved the death penalty for those who had deliberately sought to take human life. There was no evidence that the brothers had meant for their father to kill the victims.
According to Lazarus, a majority of the justices agreed that the brothers should die. Using his powers as Chief Justice, Rehnquist assigned Sandra Day O'Connor the task of writing the opinion. O'Connor had to explain, on behalf of the Court,that Tisons should be executed. However, O'Connor could not t...