April 03

As a service to subscribers, the REVIEW provides this brief summary of the contents of recent reference works, anthologies of previously published materials, textbooks and collected readings designed for students, casebooks designed for undergraduate and law school use, later editions of books previously reviewed in this journal, and other specialized publications. Unless noted, the comments are those of the editor.

LANDMARK DECISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT by Paul Finkelman and Melvin I. Urofsky. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002. 687pp. Cloth $225 ISBN 1-56802-720-6.

LANDMARK DECISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT explores the historical context and constitutional significance of more than one thousand of the most important cases to come before the Supreme Court. This reference work provides an unparalleled examination of the Supreme Court and the impact of judicial decision making on American democracy. Organized chronologically by decade, the informative case summaries in this volume are introduced with case name, citation, decision date, vote and vote alliances, authors of various opinions-majority, concurring, and dissenting-and the justices joining them. The summaries include extensive case cross-referencing to demonstrate the evolution of judicial decision and their historical connections. Most summaries include bibliographical references to facilitate additional research. A helpful appendix includes the U.S. Constitution, a chronological table of Supreme Court nominations, a detailed record of membership changes on the Court since 1789, and a historical seat chart of the justices. Case and subject indexes complete the volume.

THE SUPREME COURT COMPENDIUM: DATA, DECISIONS & DEVELOPMENT by Lee Epstein, Jeffery A. Segal, Harold J. Spaeth, and Thomas G. Walker. (Third Edition) Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002. 780pp. Cloth $85.00. ISBN 1-56802-592-0.

THE SUPREME COURT COMPENDIUM: DATA, DECISIONS & DEVELOPMENT is an indispensable collection of historical and statistical information on all important aspects of the U.S. Supreme Court, including its history, its development as an institution, the justices’ backgrounds, their nominations and confirmations, and the Court’s relationships with the public, the media, and other governmental and judicial bodies.

THE DELAWARE STATE CONSTITUTION: A REFERENCE GUIDE by Randy J. Holland. Westport: Greenwood, 2002. 304pp. Cloth $114.95. ISBN 0-313-2742-X.

The First state constitution drafted by a convention composed of popularly elected representatives, Delaware’s state constitution is rich with history and tradition. Justice Holland provides an outstanding constitutional and historical account of the state’s basic governing charter. Starting with an overview of Delaware’s constitutional history he proceeds to an in-depth, section-by-section analysis of the entire constitution, detailing important changes that have been made over the years. Justice Holland’s learned treatment, along with the list of cases, index, and bibliography, makes this guide indispensable for students, scholars, and practitioners of Delaware’s constitution.

PROHIBITED GOVERNMENT ACTS: A REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION by Jack Stark Westport: Greenwood, 2002 192pp. Cloth $79.95

PROHIBITED GOVERNMENT ACTS traces the history of, and analyzes, the current status of the law on a number of prohibited acts forbidden to the federal government as prescribed in Article I, Section 9, of the United States Constitution. A table of cases, bibliographic essay, and an index to enable further pursuit of key topics is included to aid students, legal, and constitutional scholars.

RESPONSIBILITY AND FAULT by Tony Honoré Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2002. 161pp. Paperback £9.99 ISBN 1-84113-399-X.

RESPONSIBILITY AND FAULT addresses the question: Why should we be held responsible for the harm we cause? Honoré proposes a theory of responsibility, ‘outcome responsibility,’ according to which, to be responsible, it is sufficient to have intervened in the world. To act and to be responsible is to assume certain risks, so that responsibility can be a matter of luck rather than fault or merit. Whether responsibility carries with it moral blame or legal liability is an important but secondary question. With the help of this theory he explains the moral basis of strict liability and of tort law in general; shows when there is a moral difference between positive acts and omissions; and indicates the extent to which the circumstances that cause a wrongdoer to wrong should affect his responsibility.

PRISON VIOLENCE: THE DYNAMICS OF CONFLICT, FEAR AND POWER by Kimmett Edgar, Ian O’Donnell, and Carol Martin Portland: Willian Publishing, 2003. 230pp. Cloth $55.00 ISBN 1-903240-98-0.

This book brings an original approach to the problem of violence between prisoners. Building on their research in English prisons over five years, which included surveys of 2,000 prisoners and more than 200 in-depth interviews, the authors pay particular attention to the patterns of decision-making that guide prisoners in handling their disputes, their interpretations of potentially dangerous situations, the role of the reciprocal victimization, and the institutional norms that promotes violence as a means of resolving conflicts.

PROBLEM ORIENTED POLICING FROM INNOVATION TO MAINSTREAM by Johannes Knutsson (editor). Monsey: Criminal Justice Press, 2003. 15 vols. 304pp. Cloth $47.50 ISBN 1-881798-37-2.

This analysis of the international literature explores why problem-oriented policing interventions have been shown to be effective and how to broaden the use of this approach in everyday policing.

UNJUSTIFIED ENRICHMENT: KEY ISSUES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE by David Johnston and Reinhard Zimmermann (editors) New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 749pp. Cloth $120.00 ISBN 0-521-80820-0.

In recent years unjustified enrichment has been one of the most intellectually vital areas of private law. There is, however, still no unanimity among civil-law and common-law legal systems about how to structure this important branch of the law of obligations. Several key issues are considered comparatively here, including grounds for recovery of enrichment, defences, third-party enrichment, as well as proprietary and taxonomic questions. Two papers deal with each topic, one a representative of a civil-law or mixed system. This approach illuminates not only similarities or differences between systems, but also what different systems can learn from one another. In an area of law whose territory is still partially uncharted and whose borders are contested, such comparative perspectives will be valuable for both academic analysis of the law and its development by the courts.