The Chief
The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts
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Narrated by:
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Jennywren Walker
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By:
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Joan Biskupic
About this listen
An incisive biography of the Supreme Court's enigmatic chief justice, taking us inside the momentous legal decisions of his tenure so far.
John Roberts was named to the Supreme Court in 2005 claiming he would act as a neutral umpire in deciding cases. His critics argue he has been anything but, pointing to his conservative victories on voting rights and campaign finance. Yet he broke from orthodoxy in his decision to preserve Obamacare. How are we to understand the motives of the most powerful judge in the land?
In The Chief, award-winning journalist Joan Biskupic contends that Roberts is torn between two often divergent priorities: to carry out a conservative agenda and to protect the Court's image and his place in history. Biskupic shows how Roberts' dual commitments have fostered distrust among his colleagues, with major consequences for the law. Trenchant and authoritative, The Chief reveals the making of a justice and the drama on this nation's highest court.
©2019 Joan Biskupic (P)2019 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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"Assiduously reported and briskly written...[Biskupic] suggests that [Roberts] is pulled by two often-conflicting instincts. One is ideological: a desire to move the court rightward on race, religion and other issues. The other is institutional: an interest in the court being respected and seen as nonpolitical."—New York Times Book Review
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When the stories that lead our daily news involve momentous constitutional questions, present-minded journalists and busy citizens cannot always see the stakes clearly. In The Constitution Today, Akhil Reed Amar, America's preeminent constitutional scholar, considers the biggest and most bitterly contested debates of the last two decades. He shows how the Constitution's text, history, and structure are a crucial repository of collective wisdom, providing specific rules and grand themes relevant to every organ of the American body politic.
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Amar is a Brilliant Arguer
- By MJ Schirmer on 11-16-16
By: Akhil Reed Amar
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The Majesty of the Law
- Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice
- By: Sandra Day O'Connor
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In this remarkable book, Sandra Day O’Connor explores the law, her life as a Supreme Court Justice, and how the Court has evolved and continues to function, grow, and change as an American institution. Tracing some of the origins of American law through history, people, ideas, and landmark cases, O’Connor sheds new light on the basics, exploring through personal observation the evolution of the Court and American democratic traditions.
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Informative and well-written
- By James on 07-11-05
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The Supreme Court
- By: William H. Rehnquist
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Chief Justice Rehnquist's engaging writing illuminates both the high and low points in the Court's history, from Chief Justice Marshall's dominance of the Court during the early 19th century through the landmark decisions of the Warren Court. Citing cases such as the Dred Scott decision and Roosevelt's Court-packing plan, Rehnquist makes clear that the Court does not operate in a vacuum, that the justices are unavoidably influenced by their surroundings, and that their decisions have real and lasting impacts on our society.
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Absorbing
- By Jean on 01-28-18
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Louis D. Brandeis
- A Life
- By: Melvin I Urofsky
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 35 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The first full-scale biography in 25 years of one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the Supreme Court - an audiobook that reveals Louis D. Brandeis the reformer, lawyer, and jurist, and Brandeis the man, in all of his complexity, passion, and wit. As a lawyer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he pioneered how modern law is practiced.
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a Listen to Louis D. Brandeis
- By J on 07-11-10
By: Melvin I Urofsky
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The Brethren
- Inside the Supreme Court
- By: Bob Woodward, Scott Armstrong
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices - maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising, and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.
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Amazing
- By Andy on 03-28-19
By: Bob Woodward, and others
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Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy
- Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
- By: James T. Patterson
- Narrated by: Steve Anderson
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Most Americans still see Brown v. Board of Education as a triumph - but was it? James T. Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African-Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits; to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision.
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The Fight Against Inequality
- By Marcus on 03-05-15
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Forcing the Spring
- Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality
- By: Jo Becker
- Narrated by: Jamie Leonhart
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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A tour de force of groundbreaking reportage by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jo Becker, Forcing the Spring follows the historic legal challenge mounted against California’s ban on same-sex marriage, a remarkable lawsuit that forced the issue of marriage equality before the highest court in the land. For nearly five years Becker embedded with the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, was given free rein within the legal and political war rooms where strategy was plotted, and attended every day of the trial and every appellate argument.
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A stirring courtroom drama
- By David on 05-19-14
By: Jo Becker
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Supreme Disorder
- Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest Court
- By: Ilya Shapiro
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The brutal confirmation battles we saw over Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are symptoms of a larger problem with our third branch of government, a problem that began long before Kavanaugh, Merrick Garland, Clarence Thomas, or even Robert Bork: the courts’ own self-corruption, aiding and abetting the expansion of federal power.
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Tremendous detail
- By Charles on 07-15-22
By: Ilya Shapiro
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The Supreme Court
- The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America
- By: Jeffrey Rosen
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives. The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.
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Overruled!
- By Stephen McLeod on 08-23-08
By: Jeffrey Rosen
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The Supremes' Greatest Hits, 2nd Revised & Updated Edition
- The 44 Supreme Court Cases That Most Directly Affect Your Life
- By: Michael G. Trachtman
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Supreme Court's rulings have shaped American life and justice and allowed Americans to retain basic freedoms such as privacy, free speech, and the right to a fair trial. This revised and updated edition of Michael G. Trachtman's riveting work includes 10 important cases from 2010 to 2015.
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Nice review overall.
- By "freeindeed4ever" on 02-10-20
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With this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invites listeners into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.
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What listeners say about The Chief
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael W Young
- 08-07-20
Biased and embarrassing
The background drama details on big cases are interesting, but the author too often editorializes in ways that are embarrassing to actual lawyers who know the details of the opinions. It sounds like the author had someone else write the summaries of a case and then threw it its own thoughts at the end. Also the narrator is too monotone and mispronounces “Posner”.
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- Ted Lapis
- 04-19-19
Chief Justice John Roberts Undercover
Critical rulings in race, wages, and religion have unveiled the Roberts Court as biased by design, despite some efforts to dissemble, and confuse. Despite protestations to the contrary, Roberts is using his power to steer the US Supreme Court hard right.
Wages for workers are merely collateral damage, when important freedoms for management are at stake. The most troubling aspects of the Roberts Court are predictable, based upon his biases by his racial & Catholic beliefs.
This umpire has a deep desire to win, not just “call balls and strikes.” His robes cloak a massive ego, given to repression of racial issues, and justifying his Catholic hierarchical instincts. In our world shifted by neuroscience powered by “Thinking Fast and Slow,” Roberts’ deference to elite control, will spell misery for millions of the working poor.
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- Kevin Farrell
- 04-12-19
Excellent in every way!
This is great read/listen. It explains a lot of the MESS the USA is in.
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- Mike Sinks
- 05-28-19
Decent Book, but a Little Early
The book certainly is timely, but I tend to agree with Roberts in the epilogue that now might not be the best time to write it. It seems to be a relatively fair recounting of events without offering much in the way of actual analysis. The right will hate it and decry it as a political hack job, and the left won't think it goes far enough.
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Overall
- Jon
- 01-03-21
story was overly politicized.
Good background, but the author clearly leads far left and makes their disagreement known. I was disappointed they didn't remain neutral.
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1 person found this helpful
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- EW
- 05-17-19
Interesting Read
An interesting and thorough biography. However, I felt the book was a bit repetitive in places and also jumped around chronologically at times. It was otherwise an easy read.
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- Reader
- 08-26-19
Distracting mispronunciations
Many basic legal terms and the names of famous judges were mispronounced to a distracting level.
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- William M.
- 04-08-19
Worthwhile pursuit
For a non lawyer, this work opens the workings of the law and those charged with interpretation of the law. What comes across to me is the sometimes blatant disregard for the individual hurt placed on innocent, disadvantaged citizens, for the sake of rigid interpretations of the constitution.
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2 people found this helpful
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- John K Hamlet
- 08-01-19
Flat
I just found this book to be alittle dull. There wasn't enough of a compelling story to keep me engaged.
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- Kevin M. Burns
- 04-17-19
Put me to sleep
I had a difficult time listening to this woman’s voice. A friend heard the narrator speaking and said, “Boring voice!’
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4 people found this helpful