U.S. Supreme Court

After 35 years as a Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens retired last year. His newly released memoir is about his time on the bench and the five Supreme Court chief justices he personally knew. He details his views of those justices and how his viewpoints on various issues evolved over the years.

Stevens, who died Tuesday, was appointed by President Ford and served on the court for 35 years before retiring in 2010. He spoke to Fresh Air in 2011 about his memoir, Five Chiefs.

After the Civil War, the United States seemed poised to grant equal rights to blacks. But the Supreme Court's rulings in the late 19th century kept blacks segregated for decades, says constitutional scholar Lawrence Goldstone.

New York Times reporter Adam Liptak wrote recently that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has become the most conservative court in living memory. Liptak discusses several recent decisions that have been unusually long -- but also vague and opaque.

In Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer outlines his ideas about the Constitution and about the way the United States legal system works. Breyer explains how the justices debate each case on their docket, why he interprets the Constitution as a living document, and details what he thinks is the worst decision the high court has ever made.

In 1937, frustrated by a conservative Supreme Court that struck down a series of his New Deal programs, President Franklin Roosevelt set about to reform the court — by expanding it and adding as many as six liberal justices. The controversial proposition is examined in writer Jeff Shesol's new book, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court.

Speculation is growing that Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court's longest-serving member, will step down in June. New Yorker legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin discusses who is likely to replace Stevens -- and offers his take on how the court will rule on the future of gun control laws.

Journalist and lawyer Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times. He gives us a roundup of this year's most important decisions — some of which were left for the final hours before summer recess.

With the moderating, centrist voice of Sandra Day O'Connor now gone from the Supreme Court, a conservative counterrevolution that had been stymied for 20 years has now begun.

So says Jeffrey Toobin in his new book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. His book is about how this counterrevolution developed. It's also a behind-the-scenes look at the court, its recent decisions and the personalities of the justices behind them.

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse, who's been covering the United States Supreme Court since 1978, talks about the just-concluded court term, the landmark decisions handed down last week, and issues facing the court in its next session.

A new biography of Justice Clarence Thomas explores some of the paradoxes of his life and career; it's called Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas. Authors Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, both reporters at The Washington Post, say the book grew out of a Post article exploring "both the racial vehemence that has hounded Thomas and the roots of his ascension to the judicial mountaintop."

Legal correspondent for ABC News, Jan Crawford Greenberg writes about the Rehnquist Court in her new book Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.

Journalist Jim Newton's new book, Justice For All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made, looks at the life of the Supreme Court Justice who presided over such landmark decisions as Brown v. Board of Education. Newton is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, sharing in the awards given to the Los Angeles Times for coverage of the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and the 1994 earthquake.

President Bush's three recent Supreme Court nominations reveal the complications and motives involved when politicians choose the nation's top judges, legal observers say. Political science professor David Yalof is an expert on the history and evolution of the Supreme Court nomination process.

William Kristol is the founder and editor of The Weekly Standard. Kristol also wrote The War Over Iraq: America's Mission and Saddam's Tyranny. Kristol also led the Project for the Republican Future to help win Republican congressional seats.

Professor Cass Sunstein discusses the nomination of Samuel Alito to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Sunstein a professor at the Law School at the University of Chicago, is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has written about his interpretation of the constitution in the new book Active Liberty.

Law Professor CASS SUNSTEIN on the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. President Bush has nominated Miers, White House Counsel, to replace Sandra Day O’Connor. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence in the Law School at the University of Chicago. Early in his career, Sunstein clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He has also been a visiting professor of law at Columbia and Harvard universities.

University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein discusses the death of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and President Bush's nomination of John G. Roberts to replace him.