Best Selling Books by Erwin Chemerinsky

The author and dean of constitutional law offers framework for understanding the US Constitution and the current threats facing democracy. Worried about what a super conservative majority on the Supreme Court means for the future of civil liberties? From gun control to reproductive health, a conservative court will reshape the lives of all Americans for decades to come. The time to develop and defend a progressive vision of the US Constitution that protects the rights of all people is now. University of California Berkeley Dean and respected legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky expertly exposes how conservatives are using the Constitution to advance their own agenda that favors business over consumers and employees, and government power over individual rights. But exposure is not enough. Progressives have spent too much of the last forty-five years trying to preserve the legacy of the Warren Court’s most important rulings and reacting to the Republican-dominated Supreme Courts by criticizing their erosion of rights—but have not yet developed a progressive vision for the Constitution itself. Yet, if we just look to the promise of the Preamble—liberty and justice for all—and take seriously its vision, a progressive reading of the Constitution can lead us forward as we continue our fight ensuring democratic rule, effective government, justice, liberty, and equality. Includes the Complete Constitution and Amendments of the United States of America Praise for We the People Paste Magazine’s 10 Best Books of November “This work will become the defining text on progressive constitutionalism—a parallel to Thomas Picketty’s contribution but for all who care deeply about constitutional law. Beautifully written and powerfully argued, this is a masterpiece.” —Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School, and author of Free Culture “Thank heaven for Erwin Chemerinsky. . . . His latest book, We the People, really is his finest work. . . . Clear and concise. . . . This book could not have come at a better time. It is a life preserver for those who feel adrift in the uncharted waters of the Trump era.” —Laurie L. Levenson, Los Angeles Review of Books “Chemerinsky . . . pulls no punches. . . . [His] rock-solid arguments are rooted in history, in a profound progressive philosophy.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A preeminent constitutional scholar offers a hard-hitting analysis of the Supreme Court over the last two hundred years Most Americans share the perception that the Supreme Court is objective, but Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the country’s leading constitutional lawyers, shows that this is nonsense and always has been. The Court is made up of fallible individuals who base decisions on their own biases. Today, the Roberts Court is promoting a conservative agenda under the guise of following a neutral methodology, but notorious decisions, such as Bush vs. Gore and Citizens United, are hardly recent exceptions. This devastating book details, case by case, how the Court has largely failed throughout American history at its most important tasks and at the most important times. Only someone of Chemerinsky’s stature and breadth of knowledge could take on this controversial topic. Powerfully arguing for term limits for justices and a reassessment of the institution as a whole, The Case Against the Supreme Court is a timely and important book that will be widely read and cited for decades to come.

Over the last few decades, the Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts have undergone a dramatic shift to the right, the result of a determined effort by right-wing lawmakers and presidents to reinterpret the Constitution by reshaping the judiciary. Conservative activist justices have narrowed the scope of the Constitution, denying its protections to millions of Americans, exactly as the lawmakers who appointed and confirmed these jurists intended. Basic long-standing principles of constitutional law have been overturned by the Rehnquist and Roberts courts. As distinguished law professor and constitutional expert Erwin Chemerinsky demonstrates in this invaluable book, these changes affect the lives of every American. As a result of political pressure from conservatives and a series of Supreme Court decisions, our public schools are increasingly separate and unequal, to the great disadvantage of poor and minority students. Right-wing politicians and justices are dismantling the wall separating church and state, allowing ever greater government support for religion. With the blessing of the Supreme Court, absurdly harsh sentences are being handed down to criminal defendants, such as life sentences for shoplifting and other petty offenses. Even in death penalty cases, defendants are being denied the right to competent counsel at trial, and as a result innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death. Right-wing politicians complain that government is too big and intrusive while at the same time they are only too happy to insert the government into the most intimate aspects of the private lives of citizens when doing so conforms to conservative morality. Conservative activist judges say that the Constitution gives people an inherent right to own firearms but not to make their own medical decisions. In some states it is easier to buy an assault rifle than to obtain an abortion. Nowhere has the conservative assault on the Constitution been more visible or more successful than in redefining the role of the president. From Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, conservatives have sought to significantly increase presidential power. The result in recent years has been unprecedented abuses, including indefinite detentions, illegal surveillance, and torture of innocent people. Finally, access to the courts is being restricted by new rulings that deny legal protections to ordinary Americans. Fewer lawsuits alleging discrimination in employment are heard; fewer people are able to sue corporations or governments for injuries they have suffered; and even when these cases do go to trial, new restrictions limit damages that plaintiffs can collect. The first step in reclaiming the protections of the Constitution, says Chemerinsky, is to recognize that right-wing justices are imposing their personal prejudices, not making neutral decisions about the scope of the Constitution, as they claim, or following the "original meaning" of the Constitution. Only then do we stand a chance of reclaiming our constitutional liberties from a rigid ideological campaign that has transformed our courts and our laws. Only then can we return to a constitutional law that advances freedom and equality.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: Principles and Policies continues to serve as an incomparably clear introduction to both doctrine and policy in its Third Edition. This highly successful student treatise offers distinct advantages: thorough treatment of all areas of constitutional law covered in both beginning and advanced courses direct, unambiguous identification of the issues takes a neutral approach that examines all sides of constitutional law debates presents both the doctrines And The underlying policy issues of the law, unlike many other texts which emphasize one or the other flexible organization allows the chapters to be used in any order For the Third Edition, The author: updates the entire text, with new material introduced throughout pays special attention to developments between editions, particularly in regard to presidential power in the war on terrorism, The many decisions concerning state sovereign immunity, The controversial rulings concerning the takings clause, The important decisions concerning affirmative action by colleges and universities, and significant developments concerning the Establishment Clause (such as the approval of vouchers And The Ten Commandments decisions) covers the most recent and significant cases, among them Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (executive power to detain enemy combatants), Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs and Tennessee v. Lane (sovereign immunity), Gonzales v. Raich (Congressiquest;s ability to prohibit possession and cultivation of marijuana for medicinal purposes), City of New London, Connecticut v. Kelo (takings clause), Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (equal protection), Lawrence v. Texas (sexual privacy), and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (vouchers)

Why originalism is a flawed, incoherent, and dangerously ideological method of constitutional interpretation Originalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Three of the Supreme Court’s nine justices explicitly embrace the originalist approach, as do increasing numbers of judges in the lower courts. Noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky gives a comprehensive analysis of the problems that make originalism unworkable as a method of constitutional interpretation. He argues that the framers themselves never intended constitutional interpretation to be an inflexible and shows how it is often impossible to know what the “original intent” of any particular provision was. Perhaps worst of all, though its supporters tout it as a politically neutral and objective method, originalist interpretation tends to disappear when its results fail to conform to modern conservative ideology.

A leading legal scholar explores how the constitutional right to seek justice has been restricted by the Supreme Court The Supreme Court s decisions on constitutional rights are well known and much talked about. But individuals who want to defend those rights need something else as well: access to courts that can rule on their complaints. And on matters of access, the Court s record over the past generation has been almost uniformly hostile to the enforcement of individual citizens constitutional rights. The Court has restricted who has standing to sue, expanded the immunity of governments and government workers, limited the kinds of cases the federal courts can hear, and restricted the right of habeas corpus. Closing the Courthouse Door, by the distinguished legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, is the first book to show the effect of these decisions: taken together, they add up to a growing limitation on citizens ability to defend their rights under the Constitution. Using many stories of people whose rights have been trampled yet who had no legal recourse, Chemerinsky argues that enforcing the Constitution should be the federal courts primary purpose, and they should not be barred from considering any constitutional question.

Federalism—the division of power between national and state governments—has been a divisive issue throughout American history. Conservatives argued in support of federalism and states'' rights to oppose the end of slavery, the New Deal, and desegregation. In the 1990s, the Rehnquist Court used federalism to strike down numerous laws of public good, including federal statutes requiring the clean up of nuclear waste and background checks for gun ownership. Now the Roberts Court appears poised to use federalism and states'' rights to limit federal power even further. In this book, Erwin Chemerinsky passionately argues for a different vision: federalism as empowerment. He analyzes and criticizes the Supreme Court''s recent conservative trend, and lays out his own challenge to the Court to approach their decisions with the aim of advancing liberty and enhancing effective governance. While the traditional approach has been about limiting federal power, an alternative conception would empower every level of government to deal with social problems. In Chemerinsky''s view, federal power should address national problems like environmental protection and violations of civil rights, while state power can be strengthened in areas such as consumer privacy and employee protection. The challenge for the 21st century is to reinvent American government so that it can effectively deal with enduring social ills and growing threats to personal freedom and civil liberties. Increasing the chains on government—as the Court and Congress are now doing in the name of federalism—is exactly the wrong way to enter the new century. But, an empowered federalism, as Chemerinsky shows, will profoundly alter the capabilities and promise of U.S. government and society.

An unprecedented work of civil rights and legal history, Presumed Guilty reveals how the Supreme Court has enabled racist policing and sanctioned law enforcement excesses through its decisions over the last half-century. Police are nine times more likely to kill African-American men than they are other Americans—in fact, nearly one in every thousand will die at the hands, or under the knee, of an officer. As eminent constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky powerfully argues, this is no accident, but the horrific result of an elaborate body of doctrines that allow the police and, crucially, the courts to presume that suspects—especially people of color—are guilty before being charged. Today in the United States, much attention is focused on the enormous problems of police violence and racism in law enforcement. Too often, though, that attention fails to place the blame where it most belongs, on the courts, and specifically, on the Supreme Court. A “smoking gun” of civil rights research, Presumed Guilty presents a groundbreaking, decades-long history of judicial failure in America, revealing how the Supreme Court has enabled racist practices, including profiling and intimidation, and legitimated gross law enforcement excesses that disproportionately affect people of color. For the greater part of its existence, Chemerinsky shows, deference to and empowerment of the police have been the modi operandi of the Supreme Court. From its conception in the late eighteenth century until the Warren Court in 1953, the Supreme Court rarely ruled against the police, and then only when police conduct was truly shocking. Animating seminal cases and justices from the Court’s history, Chemerinsky—who has himself litigated cases dealing with police misconduct for decades—shows how the Court has time and again refused to impose constitutional checks on police, all the while deliberately gutting remedies Americans might use to challenge police misconduct. Finally, in an unprecedented series of landmark rulings in the mid-1950s and 1960s, the pro-defendant Warren Court imposed significant constitutional limits on policing. Yet as Chemerinsky demonstrates, the Warren Court was but a brief historical aberration, a fleeting liberal era that ultimately concluded with Nixon’s presidency and the ascendance of conservative and “originalist” justices, whose rulings—in Terry v. Ohio (1968), City of Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983), and Whren v. United States (1996), among other cases—have sanctioned stop-and-frisks, limited suits to reform police departments, and even abetted the use of lethal chokeholds. Written with a lawyer’s knowledge and experience, Presumed Guilty definitively proves that an approach to policing that continues to exalt “Dirty Harry” can be transformed only by a robust court system committed to civil rights. In the tradition of Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, Presumed Guilty is a necessary intervention into the roiling national debates over racial inequality and reform, creating a history where none was before—and promising to transform our understanding of the systems that enable police brutality.

Interpreting The Constitution doesn''t fit neatly into the extensive literature on judicial review and constitutional interpretation that reconciles judicial review with democracy defined as majority rule. Indeed, Chemerinsky criticizes this method of interpretation and contends that the Constitution exists to protect political minorities and fundamental rights from majority rule. Chapter by chapter, he keenly defends this unique method of interpretation, challenges the general approach, and offers thorough, expert coverage.

This premier treatise offers a powerful exploration of the underlying polices and the doctrine of federal jurisdiction. Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation''s leading authorities in this area of the law, clearly identifies current law and unresolved

A groundbreaking work from one of America’s leading legal scholars, No Democracy Lasts Forever audaciously asserts that the only way a polarized America can avoid secession is to draft a new Constitution. The Constitution has become a threat to American democracy. Due to its inherent flaws—its treatment of race, dependence on a tainted Electoral College, a glaringly unrepresentative Senate, and the outsized influence of the Supreme Court—Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School and one of our foremost legal scholars, has come to the sobering conclusion that our nearly 250-year-old founding document can no longer hold. Much might be fixed by Congress or the Supreme Court, but they seem unlikely to do so. One might logically conclude that amending the Constitution would solve the problem, yet logic seldom takes precedent, given that only fifteen of the 11,848 amendments proposed since 1789 have passed. Chemerinsky contends that without major changes, the Constitution is beyond redemption in that it has created a government that can no longer deal with the urgent issues, such as climate change and wealth inequalities, that threaten our nation and the world. Yet political Armageddon can still be avoided, Chemerinsky writes, if a new constitutional convention is empowered to replace the Constitution of 1787. Just as the Founding Fathers replaced the faulty Articles of Confederation that same year, we must, No Democracy Lasts Forever argues, rewrite the entire Constitution from start to finish. Still, Chemerinsky goes further than that, suggesting that without serious changes Americans may be on the path to various forms of secession based on a recognition that what divides us as a country is, in fact, greater than what unites us. No Democracy Lasts Forever asserts with exceptional clarity that if the problems with the Constitution are not fixed, we are ineluctably heading toward a crisis where secession is, indeed, possible and where it will be necessary to think carefully about how to preserve the United States as a world power in a very different form of government. Despite these troubles, Chemerinsky remains hopeful, revealing how the past offers hope that change can happen. The United States has been through enormously challenging and divisive times before, with a civil war and the Great Depression, and Chemerinsky ultimately shows that it may still be possible to cure the defects and save American democracy at the same time.

Throughout American history, views on the proper relationship between the state and religion have been deeply divided. And, with recent changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, First Amendment law concerning religion is likely to change dramatically in the years ahead. In The Religion Clauses, Erwin Chemerinsky and Howard Gillman, two of America''s leading constitutional scholars, begin by explaining how freedom of religion is enshrined in the First Amendment through two provisions. They defend a robust view of both clauses and work from the premise that that the establishment clause is best understood, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, as creating a wall separating church and state. After examining all the major approaches to the meaning of the Constitution''s religion clauses, they contend that the best approaches are for the government to be strictly secular and for there to be no special exemptions for religious people from neutral and general laws that others must obey. In an America that is only becoming more diverse with respect to religion, this is not only the fairest approach, but the one most in tune with what the First Amendment actually prescribes. Both a pithy primer on the meaning of the religion clauses and a broad-ranging indictment of the Court''s misinterpretation of them in recent years, The Religion Clauses shows how a separationist approach is most consistent with the concerns of the founders who drafted the Constitution and with the needs of a religiously pluralistic society in the 21st century.

In the Eighth Edition of Federal Jurisdiction, luminary author Erwin Chemerinsky unpacks the black letter law and underlying policy issues of his subject with the clarity and penetrating insight for which he is renowned. An accessible and thorough exposition of the laws, issues, and policies that determine the jurisdiction of federal courts— students know they can rely on Federal Jurisdiction, Eighth Edition to inform and enrich their understanding of the cases and materials covered in this course. New to the Eighth Edition: Political question doctrine after Rucho v. Common Cause (partisan gerrymandering) Sovereign immunity after Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt and Cooper v. Allen Developments in suing government officers, especially qualified immunity New limits on Bivens suits Professors and students will benefit from: Thorough updating of every aspect of the book

Erwin Chemerinsky and Laurie L. Levenson bring to this casebook a wealth of experience as practicing attorneys, law professors, and authors. Written in the approachable style that characterizes Chemerinsky’s Constitutional Law casebook, Criminal Procedure guides students to an understanding of the law through tightly edited cases and a dynamic and innovative pedagogy. Criminal Procedure offers : eloquent and substantive writing that draws on deep wells of experience and scholarship a dynamic and innovative pedagogy that includes tightly edited cases, author-written essays, legal pleadings that argue the issues, And The perspectives of prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, police, and victims a chronological organization that walks the student through the criminal justice process, from the investigation to habeas corpus a consistently systematic treatment of topics in every chapter: an introduction To The underpinning issues of the law discussion of the history and development of the law in response to those issues examples of recent or seminal cases that have shaped the law analysis of the success or failure of the law to adequately remedy the issue that gave rise to its inception Supreme Court cases through October Term 2006, along with many familiar chestnuts a detailed Teacher’s Manual that includes questions and answers for classroom discussion a complete teaching package that includes PowerPoint slides, a DVD that presents the facts and backgrounds of several key cases, and a website Dynamic and innovative, Criminal Procedure shows—through clear and succinct text, tightly edited cases, legal pleadings, And The perspectives of participants and players—a complete picture of the criminal procedure system. An author website to support classroom instruction using this title is available at http://www.aspenlawschool.com/chemerinsky_levenson

Can free speech coexist with an inclusive campus environment? Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry. In this clear and carefully reasoned book, a university chancellor and a law school dean—both constitutional scholars who teach a course in free speech to undergraduates—argue that campuses must provide supportive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body but can never restrict the expression of ideas. This book provides the background necessary to understanding the importance of free speech on campus and offers clear prescriptions for what colleges can and can’t do when dealing with free speech controversies.

To ensure that you have the most up-to-date materials for your constitutional law class, make sure you use Chemerinsky''s 2003 Case Supplement. This expert author brings you the very latest cases and materials through the end of the 2002-2003 Supreme Court term.

To ensure that you have the most up-to-date and complete materials for your Constitutional Law class, be sure to use Constitutional Law, 2009 Case Supplement . Case coverage includes: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder Altria Group, Inc. v. Good Wyeth v. Levine Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc. District Attorney''s Office For The Third Judicial District v. Osborne Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum Federal Communications Commission et al., Petitioners, v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., et al.

To ensure that you have the most up-to-date and complete materials for your Constitutional Law class, be sure to use Constitutional Law, 2009 Case Supplement . Case coverage includes: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder Altria Group, Inc. v. Good Wyeth v. Levine Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc. District Attorney''s Office For The Third Judicial District v. Osborne Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum Federal Communications Commission et al., Petitioners, v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., et al.

From the same author of the highly successful Constitutional Law, Sixth Edition, a leading casebook in the field, The First Amendment by Erwin Chemerinsky provides a comprehensive and accessible review of speech and religion jurisprudence under the First Amendment (Chapters 9 and 10 of Constitutional Law, Sixth Edition). With its concise, yet comprehensive presentation, The First Amendment presents the law solely through case excerpts and the author’s own essays, which make the law more readily understood through context and background information. The text’s flexible organization accommodates a variety of course structures so that no chapter assumes that students have read preceding material. New to the Second Edition: Important new free speech cases, especially Janus v. American Federation and NIFLA v. Becerra Updated with cases through the October 2019 Term, including Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue Professors and student will benefit from: Concise, yet comprehensive presentation Annual case supplement Leading text by a prominent scholar Flexible organization—no chapter assumes students have read other chapters, which allows for a variety of course lengths and structures Distinctive approach using only case excerpts and author’s own essays Context and background material to make the law more readily understood

the 2007 Supplement to Constitutional Law will include cases from the three terms (October Terms 2004, 2005, and 2006) that have occurred since the publication of the second edition of the book. In addition To The cases included in the 2006 Supplement, new cases likely will include: Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation, considering whether taxpayers have standing to challenge executive offices of Faith-Based and Community Initiative to provide money to religious organizations providing social services. Phillip Morris USA v. Williams, limiting what a jury''s ability to award punitive damages for harm to third parties. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, considering whether it violates equal protection for a school system to use race in assigning students to secondary schools so as to achieve desegregation. Gonzales v. Carhart, upholding the constitutionality of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003. Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, considering whether the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act is unconstitutional as applied to prevent issue advertising by an organization that exists for advocacy purposes. Morse v. Frederick, considering whether a student may be punished for holding a banner (*Bong Hits 4 Jesus*) at a school event on a public sidewalk outside the school.

Intended for use with any of the authors’ three casebooks for Criminal Procedure, The 2008 Case and Statutory Supplement combines two different objectives. First, it covers the cases from the October 2007 Term, which ended on June 28, 2008. Second, it provides important statutory material related to each of the casebook’s chapters. the 2008 Case and Statutory Supplement features significant new Supreme Court case decisions regarding: Searches and Seizures Seizures and Arrests Bail and Pretrial Release Preventative Detention Right to Counsel When the Right to Counsel Applies Right of Self-Representation Trial Jury Composition and Selection Sentencing Indeterminate versus Determinate Sentencing The Death Penalty Standards for Constitutional Implementation of the Death Penalty Recent Limits on the Scope of the Death Penalty Habeas Corpus And The War on Terrorism Important Statutory Material: Selected Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Selected Sections from U.S. Code Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure Selected Sections from U.S. Code Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure

Intended for use with any of the authors'' three casebooks for Criminal Procedure, the 2009 Case and Statutory Supplement combines two objectives: First, it covers the cases from the October 2008 Term, which ended on June 30, 2009. Second, it provides important statutory material related to each of the casebook''s chapters. The 2009 Case and Statutory Supplement features significant new Supreme Court case decisions regarding: Searches Incident to Arrest Arizona v. Gant Searches When There Are Special Needs Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding Exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule Herring v. United States Police Interrogation and the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination Montejo v. Louisiana Speedy Trial Rights Vermont v. Brillon Sentencing Oregon v. Ice Collateral Estoppel Yeager v. United States Important Statutory Material: Selected Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Selected Sections from U.S. Code Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure Selected Sections from U.S. Code Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure