U.S. Supreme Court

New York Times journalist Adam Liptak says the court's conservative justices have increasingly based their decisions on the foundation of free speech — including a case that dealt a blow to unions.

Journalist Robert Draper writes in National Geographic that the proliferation of cameras focused on the public has led "to the point where we're expecting to be voyeur and exhibitionist 24/7."

New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin discusses Leonard Leo, the conservative lawyer who is responsible, to a considerable extent, for one third of the justices on the Supreme Court.

Legal expert Jeffrey Rosen says of the Supreme Court nominee: "If he thought that individual liberty was threatened by presidential or congressional overreaching, then he would step in."

Burger served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1969 until 1986. Linda Greenhouse, author of The Burger Court, says those years helped establish the court's conservative legal foundation.

One hundred years ago, Brandeis became the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court. Author Jeffrey Rosen says that Brandeis was also the most far-seeing progressive justice of the 20th century.

In the first half of the 20th century, American eugenicists used forced sterilization to "breed out" traits they considered undesirable. Adam Cohen tells the story in his new book, Imbeciles.

The strategy of going to the Supreme Court to challenge Proposition 8 was controversial within the gay-rights movement. Now, Jo Becker's new book is proving to be controversial as well.

Journalist Jeffrey Toobin notes how Obama's appointees are a new mix of ethnic minorities, women and gay judges. But a couple of these courts are hearing suits that could undo some of Obama's actions.

The Supreme Court term ended Monday. The New York Times correspondent and lawyer Adam Liptak talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about what the decisions reveal about the nine justices.

Evan Mandery's A Wild Justice is an account of the legal battles that led to the U.S. Supreme Court striking down capital punishment, then reversing course four years later. He says that today, prisoners who are sentenced to death have a 10 percent chance of actually being executed.

Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, says that in the years Chief Justice John Roberts has led the court, his patient and methodical approach has allowed him to establish a robustly conservative record.

Anthony Lewis, the New York Times columnist and reporter who covered the Supreme Court in the late 1950s and early 1960s, died Monday. Fresh Air remembers him by listening back to a 1991 interview in which Lewis talks about the responsibilities of a columnist and the importance of a correctly-spelled name.

In a profile of Ginsburg for this week's New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin describes how the incremental philosophy of litigation that helped her win many precedent-setting women's rights cases as a lawyer is reflected in her career as a Supreme Court justice.

Jeffrey Toobin's new book, The Oath, explores how President Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts are at odds over constitutional law. Toobin tells Fresh Air that while Obama likes precedent when it comes to the Supreme Court, Roberts "wants to move the court in a dramatically new direction."

The health care case wasn't the only important decision rendered by the court during its recent term. New York Times reporter Adam Liptak rounds up the session's most important cases -- including ones addressing immigration, campaign finance and Guantanamo detainees.

James Bopp is the lawyer who first represented Citizens United in the case that ended up in the Supreme Court, which ruled that corporations and unions could give money to political committees active in election campaigns. That decision and subsequent lower court decisions have led to SuperPACs, which allow corporations, unions and individuals to make unlimited contributions, pool them together, and use the money for political campaigns.

Republican and Democratic SuperPACs, empowered by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, can collect unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions. Potter became a celebrity when he signed on as Stephen Colbert's lawyer and advised the satirical TV host on how to create his own SuperPAC.