Author, journalist & commentator
Published Books
John Paul Stevens:
An
Independent Life
A controversial session of the U.S. Supreme Court is ending. Chances are good
that President Barack Obama will need to appoint another justice soon.
Through vivid family history and a careful look at his work on the bench, Barnhart presents the first
biography Justice John Paul Stevens, who has proudly earned the title of the
Court's most prolific dissenter.
To provide a nuanced and multifaceted look at the justice, Barnhart and his research associate, Gene Schlickman, interviewed Stevens
and an extraordinary number of Stevens' friends and family members, former
clerks, current colleagues, politicians, and court watchers. They spoke with
such public figures as former President Gerald Ford, former Ford chief of staff Donald
Rumsfeld, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Barnhart
and Schlickman trace Stevens’s early
years as a Chicago lawyer, his appointment to the federal appeals bench in
Chicago, and his ultimate nomination to the Supreme Court – evidence that they
argue establishes Stevens as the kind
of independent jurist whom the Founding Fathers intended and Americans today
have a right to demand on the bench.
They examine Stevens’s best-known opinions, including three powerful dissents: the leading flag-burning case, Texas v. Johnson; the decision that awarded the presidency to George W. Bush, Bush v. Gore; and the recent ruling that permitted corporations directly to engage in electioneering, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission.
The federal judge who oversaw the Chicago Conspiracy Trial in 1969 became a hero, a villain and a laughing stock after his oversight of the trial went horribly wrong. In a paper written for The Chicago Literary Club, Bill Barnhart takes a balanced look at Judge Hoffman and his career on the bench. It's a cautionary tale about judicial temperament.
TALES OF HOFFMAN
Kerner: The Conflict
of
Intangible Rights
The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering the
constitutionality of a lethal weapon in the hands of federal prosecutors -- a federal mail and wire fraud law that makes it a crime to deprive
someone of “the intangible right of
honest services.” This brief but sweeping power has led to the convictions
of corrupt Washington lobbyist Jack
Abramoff, former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling, former Illinois Governor George Ryan and former Canadian media mogul Conrad Black among scores of others.
Three decades earlier, the conviction by a federal
jury of former Illinois Governor Otto
Kerner, the most beloved
political figure of his time in Illinois, was a principal model for what became
the “honest services” statute.
But the book’s evidence proves that the case against Kerner was weak. Kerner
stands as a primer for anyone seriously concerned about political
corruption and the exercise of federal executive power in the political arena.
