Establishing Justice in Middle America

A History of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Jeffrey Brandon Morris

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Year: 2007
• Topic: Law
• eBook ISBN:
  9780816654161
• Subtopic: Courts
• Index: Law

Headquartered in St. Louis and serving primarily Midwestern states, the Eighth Circuit Court has ruled on cases that touch some of the most significant issues in American history, including Native American rights, school segregation, farm bankruptcies, abortion, the environment, pornography, the “war on drugs,” and the first successful class-action sexual-harassment lawsuit.

 

In Establishing Justice in Middle America, Jeffrey Brandon Morris covers its history, from its founding in 1866 through the present day. Morris also provides a panoramic view, discussing how the court has changed over time, the judges who have served on the court, and all of the court’s major cases. This work is one of the first histories of a court in the mostly regional tier of federal courts that are, judicially speaking, nearest to the Supreme Court.

 

Establishing Justice in Middle America reveals how, in many ways, the history of a regional court is a history of the nation itself.

 

Jeffrey Brandon Morris is professor of law at Touro Law Center in Long Island, New York. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including histories of four federal courts, and is editor of the Encyclopedia of American History.

 

Published for the Historical Society of the United States Courts in the Eighth Circuit.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION: Middle America during the Nineteenth Century
• 1. “An Empire in Itself ”: The Eighth Circuit before 1891
• 2. The Early Years, 1891–1929
• 3. The Sanborn Court, 1929–1959
• 4. The Era of the Warren Court, 1956–1969
• 5. The Moderately Liberal Court of the 1970s
• 6. “Debate, Differences, and a Robust Exchange of Ideas”: The Eighth Circuit during the 1980s
• 7. Leaving the Old Century and Entering the New
• AFTERWORD
• NOTES
• INDEX