Nine scorpions in a bottle

de Max Lerner

The United States Supreme Court looms large in the public imagination. To many, its magisterial facade stands for the rule of law and the triumph of justice, a lofty and daunting symbol of the principles America holds to be sacred. But behind those towering pillars there has been so much infighting, intrigue, and backstabbing over the years that the legendary justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., reportedly described the Court as "nine scorpions in a bottle." Nobody appreciated all of this more than Max Lerner, who was the acknowledged dean of Supreme Court observers. Beginning with the seminal articles he wrote for the Yale Law Journal in the 1930s, through to the New York Post columns that ran almost until his death in 1992, Lerner was driven by a passion to demystify the Court and to uncover the historical, social, and psychological underpinnings of its landmark decisions. He also believed in the majesty and even the mystique of the forum in which some of America's grandest dramas have been enacted, beginning the moment judicial review was established in Marbury v. Madison. Lerner was clear-eyed about the Court's human dimensions and could identify its moments of shame, but underlying his work is pride in the durability of the Court, which for so long has both reflected and profoundly affected American culture. Nine Scorpions in a Bottle is the work of a lifetime, and its is Max Lerner's final work. Here are his celebrated portraits of John Marshall, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Earl Warren, and of course Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., whose judicial vision Lerner most respected. Not all justices receive judicious treatment; Lerner makes clear which he believes were the great legal minds and which were not. He traces what he terms their "constitutional journey," evaluating their judicial range and stature and assessing the impact they have had on those who succeeded them. Here, too, are his timeless discussions of the cases that continue to shape American society and legal debate, such as Brown v. Board of Education, The U.S. v. Nixon, and Roe v. Wade. Case by case, justice by justice, Nine Scorpions in a Bottle shows us the trajectory of Max Lerner's own constitutional journey, one marked above all by an exuberant joy in the rigors of legal warfare waged at the very highest level. It will enrich every American's understanding of the Supreme Court.