Dismantling American Common Law
The American law system has experienced a quiet revolution that has gone largely unnoticed by political scientists and legal scholars. The change that has occurred-the abandonment of the common law foundation on which the American judicial system was built-has important consequences for democratic politics in the United States and abroad. Dismantling American Common Law: Liberty and Justice in Our Transformed Courts tracks the development of American common law through historical and...
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Dismantling American Common Law provides new insights into the political implications and philosophical origins of the American common law tradition, the importance of which has largely been ignored by the political science community.
Acknowledgments viiIntroduction ixDefining the Common Law and Surveying the Literature 1Debating the Common Law in America 15An Evaluation of the Factors that Have Led to the Dismantling 37The Decline in the Use of Juries 57Equity, Sovereign Immunity, and Consequences 77Montesquieu as the Intellectual Forerunner 109Conclusion 153Bibliography 159Index 167
\ ChoiceThis fine scholarly book contains ample, carefully compiled footnotes and an excellent bibliography....Recommended.\ \ \ \ \ Paul CarreseAmerica's abandonment of its original legal-political tradition is a timely topic, given concerns about the judicializing of politics and how to foster the rule of law in our democratic era. The eclipse of the traditional common law in academia and the courts removes a pillar of constitutional democracy. Kyle Scott shows that this is the crucial missing context for our debates about powerful lawyers and litigation, and about judicial activism. Students of law, judicial power, and political development will profit from this display that old ideas and authors guide the spirit of current policies and disputes.\ \ \ CHOICEThis fine scholarly book contains ample, carefully compiled footnotes and an excellent bibliography....Recommended. 2008\ \ \ \ \ Kathleen SullivanThis perspective offers a new lens to ask questions about democracy, authority, and stability....Scott can add to this pursuit an appreciation for quantitative methods, which is well regarded in social science history. By asking theoretical questions and testing for variables drawn from that inquiry, Scott is encouraging an expansion of methods in studies of legal development.\ \ \ \ \ Paul BraceCommon law normally escapes the attention of political scientists. Kyle Scott breaks this unfortunate tradition with an imaginative study that weds traditional jurisprudential and philosophical arguments with sophisticated empirical cross-state comparative analysis. Common law practices have eroded in the American states and Scott's analysis alerts us to the importance of this change and to the underlying political processes that fueled this transformation.\ \
