Judicial Policy Making: American and Canadian Perspectives

Richard Funston. Constitutional Counter-Revolution? The Warren Court and the Burger Court: Judicial Policy Making in Modern America. New York: Shenkman, 1977. 399 pp. Constitutional Counter-Revolution is a study of the continuities and dis- continuities injudicial decision-making in the United States Supreme Court under the Chief Justiceships of Earl Warren and Warren Burger. Such a bald statement may fail to evoke the importance of the subject. In the years between 1954 and 1968, when Warren was Chief Justice of the Court, social and political institutions in the United States were often subjected to harsh criticism and forced to adapt to changing circumstances. Consciousness of the inequalities prevalent in American society grew, as did pressure for measures to promote equality. The prime focus for reform was upon racial issues, yet attention was also directed to other civil liberties, such as voting rights and rights of criminal defendants. The Warren Court adopted a leading role in trying to address civil liberties issues, with racial inequality the main target of the Court. Brown v. Board of Education1 was decided within a few months of Warren's accession to the position of Chief Justice. In rejecting racial segregation in schools and in overruling the "separate but equal" doctrine contained in Plessv v. Ferguson,2 the Warren Court signalled the direction which it would take in its quest for protection of individual civil liberties over the next fifteen years.