Vol. 10 No. 4 (April 2000) pp. 236-238.

THE OXFORD GUIDE TO UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS by Kermit L. Hall (Editor). New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 428 pp.

Reviewed by Edward V. Heck, Department of Political Science, San Diego State University.

This book offers brief encyclopedia-style entries on 440 of the most important decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court written by a wide variety of authors primarily from the disciplines of law, political science, and history. Although this reference work may look impressive on an office bookshelf, it will be of limited value for most political scientists, particularly those in the public law field. Most of the entries are reprinted from the more comprehensive THE OXFORD COMPANION TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (1992). The editor has prepared more than 40 new essays dealing with cases decided since 1991, but the new entries generally lack the insights often found in essays prepared by subject matter experts. Moreover, in this Internet age most political scientists who encounter an unfamiliar or long-forgotten Supreme Court case in their research or while preparing to teach a constitutional law class would probably choose to point and click their way to the actual case syllabus or full-text opinion, rather than consult this type of reference volume.

As for the quality of the work, it takes little more than casual skimming to reach the unsurprising conclusion that there is considerable variation in quality among hundreds of entries by dozens of authors. Although reading a number of these case summaries at a single sitting is not unlike attempting to read the dictionary, I decided that I could provide a relatively systematic assessment of the content of the book by reading and evaluating all entries under the letters "A" and "Z," as well as those dealing with the major sex discrimination and related equal protection decisions of the Court.

Completion of this exercise left me with one clear conclusion- the variation in focus and quality is even greater than I expected. The very first entry - Joseph Kobylka's six-paragraph essay on ABINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT v. SCHEMPP (1963) - is in many ways a model of how a volume of this type can provide information not available in the opinions themselves. Kobylka places the decision in historical context and provides valuable information on the background and setting of the case. Yet, even this entry suffers from an assessment of Justice Stewart's dissenting opinion that makes Stewart out to be much more opposed to the result than would seem justified by an opinion that ultimately concluded that the case should be sent back to the lower courts for a determination of whether prayer and Bible reading exercises were truly coercive. More serious errors of commission or omission mar other essays. For example, the editor's attempt to provide background information on ADARAND CONSTRUCTORS v. PENA (1995) by

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discussing previous cases dealing with minority set-asides is devastatingly flawed by a simple factual error. To assert that FULLILOVE v. KLUTZNICK (1980) and RICHMOND v. J.A CROSON CO. (1989) were decided "in the same year" (p. 6) is not only to mislead the reader but also to overlook the importance of personnel change in the development of the Supreme Court's approach to affirmative action. Even worse from the perspective of a political scientist interested in "internal politics" is the entry on ADAMSON v. CALIFORNIA (1947). Here the author does not even discuss Justice Frankfurter's concurring opinion calling for reaffirmation of the methodology and conclusion of the majority opinion in TWINING v. NEW JERSEY (1908), the case denounced in Justice Black's dissent as a leading example of a "natural law" approach to constitutional interpretation.

The entries on sex discrimination, most written by Leslie Friedman Goldstein, are more consistent in style and quality. Although Goldstein does not emphasize the internal politics that led Justice Brennan to abandon the call for strict scrutiny found in his plurality opinion in FRONTIERO v. RICHARDSON (1973), she does provide clear and concise summaries of the key cases from REED v REED (1971) to MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN (1982). Entries on other major equal protection decisions of the last twenty years earn satisfactory marks for accuracy and insight, though I was disappointed to find that CLEBURNE v. CLEBURNE LIVING CENTER (1985), a case with fascinating parallels to the "gay rights" case of ROMER v. EVANS (1996), did not rate a mention.

As a last test of the utility of this book for providing information on relatively obscure cases, I compiled a list of 22 Supreme Court decisions dealing with the theme of deference to Congress and/or military leaders in matters of national defense cited in either Justice Rehnquist's majority opinion in the draft registration case of ROSTKER v. GOLDBERG (1981) or Chief Judge Wilkinson's opinion in the Fourth Circuit upholding the "don't ask, don't tell" legislation barring acknowledged homosexuals from military service (THOMASSON v. PERRY, 1996). Only three of the 22 cases, including ROSTKER itself, are summarized in this volume. In a nutshell, the OXFORD GUIDE failed this test of its value as a source of information on influential but relatively obscure cases.

Thus, I would conclude that this is the wrong book at the wrong time. It appears at the wrong time, because computer access to full-text opinions is now so readily available as to undermine the utility of this kind of reference book. And it is the wrong book in any case, because a revised and updated version of the original OXFORD COMPANION TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES would offer far more useful new material on topics like "State Sovereignty," the "Eleventh Amendment," and "Privileges and Immunities," not to mention biographical materials on Justices Breyer and Ginsburg.

CASE REFERENCES:

ABINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT v. SCHEMPP, 374 U.S. 203 (1963).

ADARAND CONSTRUCTORS v. PENA, 515 U.S. 200 (1995).

ADAMSON v. CALIFORNIA, 332 U.S. 46 (1947).

CLEBURNE v. CLEBURNE LIVING CENTER, 473 U.S. 432 (1985).

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FRONTIERO v. RICHARDSON, 411 U.S. 677 (1973).

FULLILOVE v. KLUTZNICK, 448 U.S. 448 (1980).

MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN, 458 U.S. 718 (1982).

REED v. REED, 404 U.S. 71 (1971).

RICHMOND v. J.A CROSON CO., 488 U.S. 469 (1989).

ROMER v. EVANS, 517 U.S. 620 (1996).

ROSTKER v. GOLDBERG, 453 U.S. 57 (1981).

THOMASSON v. PERRY, 80 F.3d 915 (4th Cir. 1996).

TWINING v. NEW JERSEY, 211 U.S. 78 (1908).