Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000. . - Reviews - book review

Contemporary Review, June, 2002

Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000. Alan M. Dershowitz. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. 275 pages. ISBN 0-19-0514827-4. This book is about the United States' Supreme Court decision to recognise George W. Bush as the winner in Florida's confused and confusing ballot by ordering the re-counting of ballots to be stopped.

Although the author teaches law in Harvard University, his book lacks the balance that one expects from someone in this position and in a book published by a University Press. It is written with great fervour and uses words such as 'corruption' and 'lawless' which readers would expect to see more usually in tabloid newspapers. Some might describe the book as a diatribe by an upset liberal. He admits that his charge against the judges is 'extremely serious' but he feels that the Court has established a dangerous precedent. Of course it had already done this, in 1954 when, using sociology rather than constitutional law, common law or precedent, it voted by the same majority (five to four) to outlaw segregation but this is not part of the author's attack.