Five Chiefs, Justice John Paul Stevens
Five Chiefs, Justice John Paul Stevens
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Five Chiefs
A Supreme Court Memoir

Author: Justice John Paul Stevens

Narrator: Gregory Itzin

Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/03/2011

Synopsis

When he resigned last June, Justice Stevens was the third longest serving Justice in American history (1975-2010) -- only Justice William O. Douglas, whom Stevens succeeded, and Stephen Field have served on the Court for a longer time.

In Five Chiefs, Justice Stevens captures the inner workings of the Supreme Court via his personal experiences with the five Chief Justices -- Fred Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist, and John Roberts -- that he interacted with. He reminisces of being a law clerk during Vinson's tenure; a practicing lawyer for Warren; a circuit judge and junior justice for Burger; a contemporary colleague of Rehnquist; and a colleague of current Chief Justice John Roberts. Along the way, he will discuss his views of some the most significant cases that have been decided by the Court from Vinson, who became Chief Justice in 1946 when Truman was President, to Roberts, who became Chief Justice in 2005.

Packed with interesting anecdotes and stories about the Court, Five Chiefs is an unprecedented and historically significant look at the highest court in the United States.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Vanessa on May 15, 2012

Ehhhhhhh. Even in the realm of reading something as an homage to a jurist I very much admire, this was kind of a snooze. I still love you, Justice Stevens! I wore a bow-tie for your birthday! But your book is not that good.......more

Goodreads review by Jim on October 19, 2011

I gave this book a much better rating than most other readers, so I feel like I should explain why. 1. I'm a total Supreme Court gossip junky, and this has lots of little details about the justices and their spouses. 2. People want this book to be like Toobin's "The Nine," but I like that when you'r......more

Goodreads review by Laura on October 30, 2011

Good book. Not a law professor’s book; not even the sort of law professor’s book that’s written for a lay audience. Nor does it get deep into the weeds the way Edward Lazarus’s Closed Chambers did. Instead, it was like a casual conversation with someone who was deeply involved in writing the world w......more

Goodreads review by Andy on November 24, 2012

An interesting perspective by Justice Stevens on his time on the court; the focus on the Five Chief Justices that he knew including the three that he served with on his time of the court. There is some irony on this focus in that after leaving aside the administrative parts of the job, a theme of St......more

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