#BookReview: The Shadow Docket by Stephen Vladeck

When The Pendulum Swings… Where Will Vladeck Be? This is one of those historical/ current event analysis books where, particularly in the “coming of age” of a novel (ish, as Vladeck shows) concept of the “shadow docket”, it will be interesting to see if the author is just as adamant against the idea when his own “team” is using it as heavily or moreso as he is when his political opponents do. Though to be clear, the history and analysis here, while necessarily hitting the current (post-Trump era) SCOTUS the hardest for doing this the most *because they have*, does an excellent job of showing just how we got to this point where it was even possible for this particular problem to exist at all. On that front… there isn’t a political “side” in current America or American history that is fully blameless in enabling or using this bad behavior, and Vladeck shows this quite well indeed and indeed seems to be a fairly objective-ish student and teacher of legal history. For such a dense overall topic, Vladeck handles the telling of the tale quite well, such that even people who have barely ever heard of the Supreme Court of the United States of America will be able to clearly see what the current problem is and how we got to this point and why both of them matter.

Indeed, the only real reason for the single star deduction is the slight lack of documentation, coming in at just 15% of the overall advance reviewer copy text rather than the more typical in my experience 20-30%. Though as I’ve been noting a few times on similar points of late, given just how many newer nonfiction books seem to be coming in within that 15-20% range, I may yet need to recalculate my seeming average.

Overall an intriguing tale, and one that every American truly needs to understand – and Vladeck does a remarkable job of making that particular task as easy as reading this particular book. Truly great work making such a dense topic so relatable and understandable, and very much recommended.

This review of The Shadow Docket by Stephen Vladeck was originally written on April 25, 2023.

#BookReview: This Earthly Frame by David Sehat

Mostly Solid History Of Official Religious Life In The United States. Sehat manages to trace the history of official religious life in the US fairly well from its pre-Founding roots through its current fights over religious liberty. There are a couple of glaring weaknesses – the largest being his claim that Natural Rights theory originated in the Christian Church (it was actually created outside of the Church as a challenge to the Church’s position that rights come from God). But as with that particular case, most of these tend to only exist in areas where a rare person might actually know the particular topic particularly well – as this former Libertarian Party of Georgia official and candidate happens to do re: Natural Rights theory. 🙂 Otherwise, a solid if slightly dry – though nowhere *near* as dry as other treatises of its type – history that would be beneficial for many Americans (or those seeking to understand America) to read. Recommended.

This review of This Earthly Frame by David Sehat was originally written on February 18, 2022.

#BookReview: The Genome Defense by Jorge L Contreras

Dense Yet Enlightening. If you’re like me and don’t like taking books across into a new month, I do *not* recommend trying to read this on the last day of the month while still working or having virtually any other obligation. Though its bibliography is a touch low at just 17% of this advanced copy (and it has numerous problems, at least in this form, of saying something like “the industry spent $ billions of dollars” without actually giving the number – a problem I’ve never noted before in any other such text), much of the reason for that is that the author himself conducted so many interviews and consulted the public court records so much, so at least there is that on that particular point. Beyond its sourcing though, this is truly a fascinating yet *dense* look at the particular issue of the AMP v Myriad patent lawsuit that eventually became a landmark Supreme Court of the United States case, detailing its full history and the personnel involved, at least insofar as their personal involvement with the case goes. (Vs other similar books looking at a particular issue like this, where full biographies of the personnel are given. Here, just enough biography is given to establish who this person is within context of this issue and their motivations surrounding it, without giving their full life stories outside of events connected to this exact case.) You may say to yourself “this is just 350 or so effective pages, that is an easy day’s read”. IT. IS. NOT. I cannot reiterate enough just how dense (yet truly readable and fascinating) this book is. Almost as though it seems to try to pack in double the amount of words of a book of similar length. Still, it is truly compelling, truly comprehensive, and truly well written, and for this it is very much recommended.

This review of The Genome Defense by Jorge L Contreras was originally written on October 1, 2021.

#BookReview: Why The Innocent Plead Guilty And The Guilty Go Free by Jed S Rakoff

Excellent Examination Of US Judicial System. This is an excellent examination of the US Judicial system, from a former US District Court judge. Indeed, the *singular* outright flaw in the ARC copy I read was its lack of bibliography and citations, which I expect will be corrected in the published edition. For the most part, Judge Rakoff’s examinations and explanations ring true and he cites several well known works in the field, including Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow during the discussion of the problem of mass incarceration. My only quibble – and it is just a quibble, just as the comments I am about to refer to are almost asides themselves – are a couple of points where the Judge makes comments about a couple of cases of a more political nature. (Including Bush v Gore and Citizens United, among perhaps a handful of others.) Overall one of the better examinations of the breadth of the US Judicial system, and even its acknowledged origins as a set of essays isn’t really obvious or noticeable. Very much recommended.

This review of Why The Innocent Plead Guilty And The Guilty Go Free by Jed S Rakoff was originally written on February 18, 2021.

#BookReview: Free To Believe by Luke Goodrich

Decent Start. Before I get into this review, it is probably important that you – *my* reader – understand the perspective I’m coming from. And that is that of the “Doorkeeeper” of Sam Shoemaker’s somewhat famous poem “I Stand At The Door“. So look that up and you’ll understand why I’m approaching the rest of this the way I am.

For those “deep inside”, they will probably rate this book around 4* or 5*. From that perspective, it is solid but might step on a few toes here and there – and they’re not always going to like its slightly-more-pragmatic-than-many-of-them approach to its reasoning.

For the “far outside” crowd, they’re probably going to rate this thing much closer to 1*, though the more objective among them might hit it at 2*. There are just so many issues with the book, and this crowd will likely judge them more harshly than I’m about to.

So that is the range I would expect depending on where a particular reader falls on the scale of “deep inside” Christendom – particularly its American version – vs “far outside” of it. Standing at the door, I note that I deduct 1 star immediately the instant I see prooftexting, which is the practice of citing random Bible verses out of context in support of some point or another.

The fact that the prooftexting herein is so rampant – from the ending of the first chapter until nearly literally the last words of the text – and so invidious – several times very obviously taking verses *far* from their original context and meaning by any even semi objective reasoning and often times taking as little as a single word from a particular verse – means that I can’t rate this any higher than 3*. And we haven’t even gotten to the other issues yet.

The other issues being factual errors and logical fallacies, mostly strawmen but also a few others. This, from a lawyer that boasts of his perfect US Supreme Court record! Factual errors include claiming that a factory is a “typical” work environment in the US. It hasn’t been for many years now. Similarly, the author claims that “many” doctors were practicing while abortion was still completely illegal in the US, pre-Roe v Wade, which was decided nearly 37 yrs before the publication of this book. How many professionals – of any stripe – do you know who are still working after 4o years?

The strawmen primarily involve abortion, gay rights, and public spaces – which form 4 of 7 chapters in the biggest section of the book. Here, it becomes evident – particularly in the author’s discussion of gay rights – that his closeness to the issue from his professional work becomes as much a hindrance to what he is willing to speak to as a help in pointing out various legal aspects of the circumstances.

It is because of these final two issues that I had to drop my own rating from 3* to 2*.

There is much good to be found here, and at minimum it can help even non-Christians see what prominent Christian legal scholars are thinking. But the issues are simply too rampant to allow me to rank it any higher. Recommended, but should be read with an eye to what is not said as much as what is.

This review of Free to Believe by Luke Goodrich was originally written on October 17, 2019.