Playing it safe : how the Supreme Court sidesteps hard cases and stunts the development of the law /

This well-informed book addresses an age-old question: must the Supreme Court decide every case within its jurisdiction, or may it avoid divisive cases by invoking its traditional doctrines of "self-restraint," particularly those of mootness, ripeness, standing to sue, or nonjusticiability. Kloppenberg (law, Univ. of Dayton) argues that the Burger and Rehnquist courts have avoided socially sensitive cases, particularly those that might be used to advance individual rights and liberties. On the other hand, the Rehnquist court has been unduly "activist" in deciding cases expanding state sovereignty and limiting congressional power. It has further avoided cases by severely reducing by half its docket of a decade ago. Kloppenberg's argument is unrealistic. The Court routinely declines to grant certiorari to 99 percent of the petitions filed each year and must limit itself to cases that transcend the litigants' interests. Given the ideological divide on the present Court, liberals might be thankful that many cases involving important public policies are not reviewed. The author offers only minimal (and soft) standards for making these choices, with good reason: choosing cases is a political act reflecting a particular philosophy, not a bureaucratic one governed by more precise standards. The author criticizes the current Court for not employing these "malleable" doctrines evenhandedly, but constitutional adjudication is not "evenhanded." Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. B. Grossman Johns Hopkins University