Constitutional Law for a Changing America

Vol. 15 No.8 (August 2005), pp.670-672

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW FOR A CHANGING AMERICA (5^th ed) (2 vols), by Lee Epstein and Thomas G. Walker. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004. Vol.1: INSTITUTIONAL POWERS AND CONSTRAINTS. 719pp. Paper. $60.95. ISBN: 1-56802-822-9. Vol.2: RIGHTS, LIBERTIES AND JUSTICE. 905pp. Paper. $65.95. ISBN: 1-56802-817-2.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW FOR A CHANGING AMERICA: A SHORT COURSE (4th ed), by Lee Epstein and Thomas G. Walker. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004. 765pp. Paper. $70.95. ISBN: 1-56802-890-3.

Reviewed by Ruth Ann Watry, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Northern Michigan University. Email: rwatry@nmu.edu .

Lee Epstein and Thomas Walker’s CONSTITUTIONAL LAW texts are among the best available on the market. For those teaching a two semester constitutional law/civil liberties sequence, there is INSTITUTIONAL POWERS AND CONSTRAINTS and RIGHTS, LIBERTIES AND JUSTICE, and for those offering only a one semester course, there is A SHORT COURSE. All three texts provide a solid introduction to the major issues in constitutional law and/or civil liberties, presented from a political science perspective.

The texts are organized topically. INSTITUTIONAL POWERS AND CONSTRAINTS focuses on the U.S. Constitution (understanding the Supreme Court), institutional authority (the judiciary, the legislature, the executive, and separation of powers), nation-state relations (federalism, the commerce power and the power to tax and spend) and economic liberties (the contract clause, economic substantive due process and the takings clause). RIGHTS, LIBERTIES AND JUSTICE focuses on the Supreme court and the Constitution (understanding the Supreme Court, the judiciary and incorporation of the Bill of Rights), civil liberties (free exercise & establishment of religion, freedom of speech, assembly & association, freedom of the press, obscenity & libel, the right to bear & keep arms and the right to privacy), the rights of the criminally accused (investigations & evidence and attorneys, trials and punishments) and civil rights (discrimination and voting & representation). A SHORT COURSE focuses on many of the topics covered in the above two texts. Topics covered in INSTITUTIONAL POWERS and RIGHTS, LIBERTIES AND JUSTICE, but not covered in A SHORT COURSE include separation of powers, incorporation of the Bill of Rights, obscenity & libel, and the right to bear & keep arms. Epstein and Walker include many of the cases that one would expect in an undergraduate Constitutional Law text and update the text regularly.

One of the positives of all three texts is in how the information is presented. Rather than just presenting the cases and discussing how the Court applied prior precedents and legal reasoning to future cases, Epstein and Walker also focus on [*671] internal and external factors that influence the decisions of the Court. They include in their discussions the influence of public opinion, the politics surrounding judicial selection, the role of judicial ideology and the roles played by interest groups and by lawyers in framing legal issues. They include numerous tables, photographs, illustrations and documents that give students a better feel for what is involved in the litigation of constitutional issues. In addition to the use of tables, figures and boxes, I found the text itself to be very student friendly. Epstein and Walker do a thorough job of presenting the background to a case and providing a discussion of the progression of cases that led to the decision being studied. The authors describe the surrounding legal and political climate in which the case occurred, and they also give the students a suggestion of the legal questions that the Court examined. Following the case excerpt, the authors provide students with a summary of the legal principle laid down in the case. This provides students with guidance before reading a decision and provides them with a means to verify their understanding afterwards.

One thing that political science a law professors often have a hard time agreeing on is which cases to include in a constitutional law text. Epstein and Walker have found an excellent solution for this with their online case archive. They have created an online source of supplemental cases, available to both the instructor and the students. This tool makes it easy for instructors to assign cases not included in the text, without having to do their own editing. For example, although the authors chose not to include MARTIN v. HUNTER’S LESSEE as an excepted case in the judiciary chapter in A SHORT COURSE, an edited version of the case is available online for those instructors who wish to assign it. Students are provided with a code which allows them to access supplemental cases for each of the chapters in the text. The online case archive also includes excerpted copies of cases recently handed down by the Court. The online case archive is a valuable addition to the texts.

Another area of concern for many constitutional law instructors is the editing of opinions included in the text. Overall, Epstein and Walker appear to do a superior job with this. The authors introduce the cases effectively, and the essential logic of the decisions comes through in the excerpts. There is the occasional omission of concurring or dissenting opinions that could help better clarify the dissent that often occurs among the justices, but overall, key themes are addressed.

Epstein and Walker also include valuable information for students at both the front and back of the book. On the front end, they include a chronological table of cases, a tool that helps students place cases in historical context. At the back, they provide numerous appendices, including Federalist #78, a list of US Presidents, a Thumbnail Sketch of the Supreme Court’s History, a list of the justices, a list of the natural courts, the Supreme Court calendar, suggestions on how to brief Supreme Court cases, a glossary, and an online case archive index.

The one possible flaw is that the volumes have too much information (but this is not necessarily a bad thing). I [*672] have personally used earlier versions of the texts covering institutional powers and rights and liberties, and I currently use the short course. I have never been able to make it through more than one-half of any of the three texts in a semester. The advantage of these texts is that I can choose which topics I believe are sufficiently important to work into my course. I also have the ability to build the course around students’ interests (if I am using the short course and have a lot of criminal justice students in the class, I make sure to cover the chapters on the rights of the criminally accused). The disadvantage is that students are often disappointed when they are required to buy a textbook and then do not use the entire book.

Overall, the three Epstein and Walker texts are excellent. The authors include the material that an undergraduate constitutional law text should include, while also providing historical, legal and political background, which is very useful to students. I enthusiastically recommend the books to all instructors comfortable with dividing case materials topically, rather than chronologically. The text and the available online resources provide instructors with flexibility to structure their course curricula according to individual preferences.

CASE REFERENCE:

MARTIN v. HUNTER’S LESSEE

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