For decades the Supreme Court has received more requests for review than it can possibly grant; it now rejects more than ninety percent of the petitions which fulfill jurisdictional requirements. Consequently, the process by which the justices select cases must be recognized as one of the most important aspects of the Court's work. But because it is hidden from public view and proceeds by secret ballot, the case-selection process has never been thoroughly analyzed.

This concise and accessible study provides an intimate view of the Court's case-selection process through an analysis of the docket books and other papers of Justice Harold H. Burton, who kept scrupulous records of the Court's work from 1945 to 1957. In her analysis of these invaluable records—the only records of case-selection votes made public since the advent of discretionary review in 1925—Provine provides two perspectives on the problematic issue of judicial motivation in case selection. The first perspective is an institutional one in which the Court is treated as the unit of analysis: the second is personal, in which differences among decision makers are the focus of analysis. Provine suggests that judicial role perceptions go far to explain both agreement and disagreement in case selection. She also considers the impact of the process upon litigants, since the system seems to favor petitioners with litigation expertise, especially the U.S. government. Yet, she claims, the secrecy of case selection fosters the popular misperception that any worthwhile case can be appealed "all the way to the Supreme Court." The Court thus maintains its image as a forum equally available to all litigants.

Must judges be trained as lawyers in order to be effective in office, or can nonlawyers serve equally well? This question has long provoked controversy among lawyers, judges, legislators, and the public. In her empirical study of the place of the nonlawyer judge in the American legal system, Doris Marie Provine concludes that, despite the opposition of the legal profession to nonlawyer judges, they are as competent as lawyers in carrying out judicial duties in courts of limited jurisdiction.

Provine presents a persuasive argument that the case against nonlawyer judges has been weighted in favor of the professional interests of lawyers, not public concerns. Her examination reveals as much about the presuppositions of legal professionals as it does about the competency of nonlawyer judges to old judicial office. To substantiate her claims, Provine has conducted the most comprehensive survey of nonlawyer and lawyer judges yet undertaken, augmenting this material with court observations and extensive interviews of judges. She integrates the results of this survey into the historical context of the lay versus lawyer judge debate, showing how the legally trained judge came to predominate in the American judicial system and analyzing in detail the campaign both in and out of the courts to make legal training a prerequisite for being a judge. Ultimately, Provine suggests, Americans are too committed to the significance of credentials and to the legal profession's vision of the judicial process to respond very favorably to nonlawyer judges, however well they might perform.

Judging Credentials will force lawyers, judges, scholars, and the public to reconsider the role nonlawyer judges play in the American judicial system. Provine's provocative views and exhaustive research adds new dimensions to our understanding of the ethics of professionalism and its consequences.

The United States deported nearly two million illegal immigrants during the first five years of the Obama presidency—more than during any previous administration. President Obama stands accused by activists of being “deporter in chief.” Yet despite efforts to rebuild what many see as a broken system, the president has not yet been able to convince Congress to pass new immigration legislation, and his record remains rooted in a political landscape that was created long before his election. Deportation numbers have actually been on the rise since 1996, when two federal statutes sought to delegate a portion of the responsibilities for immigration enforcement to local authorities.

Policing Immigrants traces the transition of immigration enforcement from a traditionally federal power exercised primarily near the US borders to a patchwork system of local policing that extends throughout the country’s interior. Since federal authorities set local law enforcement to the task of bringing suspected illegal immigrants to the federal government’s attention, local responses have varied. While some localities have resisted the work, others have aggressively sought out unauthorized immigrants, often seeking to further their own objectives by putting their own stamp on immigration policing. Tellingly, how a community responds can best be predicted not by conditions like crime rates or the state of the local economy but rather by the level of conservatism among local voters. What has resulted, the authors argue, is a system that is neither just nor effective—one that threatens the core crime-fighting mission of policing by promoting racial profiling, creating fear in immigrant communities, and undermining the critical community-based function of local policing.