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by Richard C. Cahn (Author)
This unique memoir tells firsthand the stories of six dramatic public court cases, and shows how lawyers, sometimes fighting to make new precedent, and impartial judges who hear their arguments, are our best protection against inappropriate governmental actions.
These are adventure stories, involving ordinary people attempting to protect themselves from actions by strangers or a public official that threaten to upend their lives: A male cadet soon to be commissioned learns that newly-coed West Point intends to expel him for "walking with" a female cadet. The family of the victims of three horrifying murders committed on an American military base seek justice after the government states it will not prosecute the probable murderer. Parents of a newborn baby with life-threatening medical conditions are sued by political zealots for custody of their child and the right to make her medical decisions.
Other adventures involve the author, then 34, going to Washington to ask a sharply divided Supreme Court to invalidate his county's 300-year -old charter in the first local reapportionment case in the nation; an emotional court confrontation between the White and Black populations of a local suburban community over zoning policies that it and most other American suburbs followed for many years; and New York's high court missing an opportunity to prevent the 2007-2008 world financial crisis.
These cases affected the lives of many, and became part of a long tradition of Constitutional law gradually changing to meet new conditions. The book is a clarion call to restore the courts' impartiality.
