San Antonio College Library

A biography of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, first appointed by James Madison, who strengthened the court and made it a power that could balance the executive and legislative branches.

Describes the background, accomplishments, struggles, and contributions of such Supreme Court justices as Stephen J. Field, Thurgood Marshall, and Ruther Bader Ginsburg.

Volume V in a series of books discussing the lives and major decisions of U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

William Orville Douglas was both the most accomplished and the most controversial justice ever to serve on the United States Supreme Court. He emerged from isolated Yakima, Washington, to be dubbed, by the age of thirty, "the most outstanding law professor in the nation"; at age thirty-eight, he was the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, cleaning up a corrupt Wall Street during the Great Depression; by the age of forty, he was the...

Now, for the first time in paperback, here is the remarkable story of Sandra Day O'Connor's family and early life, her journey to adulthood in the American Southwest that helped make her the woman she is today--the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and one of the most powerful women in America. In this illuminating and unusual book, Sandra Day O'Connor tells, with her brother, Alan, the story of the Day family, and of growing up on the...

Three decades after his death, the life and career of Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black continue to be studied and discussed. This latest and perhaps definitive study of Blacks origins and early influences has been 25 years in the making and offers fresh insights into the justices character, thought processes, and instincts. Black came out of hardscrabble Alabama hill country, and he never forgot his origins. He was further shaped in the early 20th-century...

When, in 1801, John Marshall became Chief Justice of the United States, the Supreme Court was little more than a clause in the Constitution and a gaggle of conflicting opinions. For the next thirty-five years, Marshall was to mold the Court into a major force. Under his leadership, it learned to speak with one voice, becoming a powerful and respected third branch of government. It enunciated the principle of judicial review, established itself as...

"John Marshall (1755-1835) was arguably the most important judicial figure in American history. As the fourth chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving during the formative years of the Republic from 1801 to 1835, he helped move the Court from the fringes of power to the epicenter of constitutional government. His great opinions in cases like Marbury v. Madison and McCulloch v. Maryland, cited by the Court thousands of times over the...