Constitutional Politics And The Judiciary

In Constitutional Revolutions Robert Justin Lipkin radically rethinks modern constitutional jurisprudence, challenging the traditional view of constitutional change as solely an extension or transformation of prior law. He instead argues for the idea of constitutional revolutions - landmark decisions that are revolutionary because they are not generated from legal precedent and because they occur when the Constitution fails to provide procedures for accommodating a needed change. According to Lipkin, U.S. constitutional law is driven by these revolutionary judgements that translate political and cultural attitudes into formal judicial decisions.

From 1953 to 1969, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren brought about many of the proudest achievements of American constitutional law. The Warren declared racial segregation and laws forbidding interracial marriage to be unconstitutional; it expanded the right of citizens to criticize public officials; it held school prayer unconstitutional; and it ruled that people accused of a crime must be given a lawyer even if they can't afford one. Yet, despite those and other achievements, conservative critics have fiercely accused the justices of the Warren Court of abusing their authority by supposedly imposing their own opinions on the nation.