Professor Smith has kindly provided the following sources for those interested in learning more about the workings of the Supreme Court:

Bickel, Alexander M. The Least Dangerous Branch, The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics, 2nd Ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Epstein, Lee and Knight, Jack. The Choices Justices Make. Washington DC: CQ Press, 1998.

George, Tracy, and Epstein, Lee. “On the Nature of Supreme Court Decision Making.” American Political Science Review, 1992, 86:323-337.

George, Tracey E. and Solimine, Michael E. “Supreme Court Monitoring of the Courts of Appeals En Banc.” Supreme Court Econ. Rev, 2001, 9:171.

Hettinger, Virginia A., Stefanie A. Lindquist, and Wendy L. Martinek. Judging On a Collegial Court: Influences on Appellate Decision Making. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.

Klein, David E. and Robert J. Hume. “Fear of Reversal as an Explanation of Lower Court Compliance.” Law & Society Review, 2006, 33(3): 579-606.

Kornhauser, Lewis A. “Adjudication by a Resource Constrained Team: Hierarchy and Precedent in a Judicial System” Southern California Law Review, 2005, 68:1605-1629.

Lax, Jeffrey R. “Certiorari and Compliance in The Judicial Hierarchy: Discretion, Reputation, and the Rule Of Four.” Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2003, 15(1):61-86.

Lee, Emery G., III. “Precedent Direction and Compliance: Horizontal Stare Decisis on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.” Seton Hall Circuit Review, 2005, 1:005.

Smith, Charles Anthony. “Credible Commitments and the Early American Supreme Court” Law & Society Review, 2008, Vol 42:1 March, 75-110.

Schwartz, Bernard. A History of the Supreme Court. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

I won’t add too much here as my suggestions for “General Resources” for the issue include so much relevant material. For the Supreme Court’s creation, I refer you to our September 2007 issue on the Constitution:.

/historynow/09_2007/index.php

If you don’t have time for the book length histories of the Court listed in my “General” sources, I recommend the brief summaries of the Court under individual Chief Justices at the SCHS Website’s “History” segment:

http://www.supremecourthistory.org/02_history/subs_history/02_c.html

The same Website’s “How the Court Works” section provides explanations of any questions you have left when you’ve finished Professor Smith’s essay. It’s an excellent guide to the Court’s procedures:

http://www.supremecourthistory.org/03_how/subs_how/03_a.html

Here are some more specialized studies. This examines the role of the justices’ conferences in reaching decisions:

Dickson, Del, Ed. The Supreme Court In Conference, 1940-1985: The Private Discussions Behind Nearly 300 Supreme Court Decisions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

This author examines the changing role of the Chief Justice:

Steamer, Robert J. Chief Justice: Leadership and the Supreme Court. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1986.

For my money, modern access to tape recorded arguments before the Court (and to the Justices’ sharp questions) can help anyone understand just how the Court works. The Oyez project at Northwestern provides links to these audios as well as to transcriptions of the tapes. Listening to the spoken words and comparing their impact to the same words on paper is a learning experience in itself:

http://www.oyez.org/