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Book Review
| Jeffrey Brandon Morris, Establishing Justice in Middle America: A History of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Pp. 441. $39.95 (ISBN 978-0816648160).
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| The author of an institutional history faces a particular challenge to those who write in the genre: making such a history relevant and intriguing to a wider audience. Those familiar with the court (like me, a former clerk for the Eight Circuit), will find the book of immediate interest. With this book, Professor Morris manages to tell an institutional history that draws in a larger readership by shedding light on what the trends in the Eighth Circuit have meant for national and regional history. The few flaws in the book tend to follow from the author's desire for coverage and to smooth over ideological differences inherent in a court that has deep divisions based on the swinging pendulum of judicial appointments between administrations. |
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Each chapter of the book has a similar structure, discussing the national and regional history, judicial administration, and judicial biographies. Both the Introduction and Chapter One focus on the history of the territory that was to become the Eight Circuit before 1891, including the genesis of the federal courts, displacement of Native Americans, and the coming of white homesteaders and the railroad. Unsurprisingly, the litigation of this period involved questions of federal jurisdiction, claims over land, matters related to farming and cases involving the railroad. In Chapter Two, covering 1891–1929, the book describes the division of the circuit into its present day form, covering the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. Some of the notable cases from this period involved antitrust (the Standard Oil case) and railroad rate fixing-statutes, which the author ties in to national trends involving industrialization and the Robber Barons. Chapter Three, dealing with the period between 1929 and 1959, notes that despite world events such as the Great Depression and the Second World War, "the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit went about its business unobtrusively, making few waves while rendering relatively brief opinions" (97). Salient categories of cases included bankruptcies (due to the depression), antitrust cases, and corruption cases, including most famously Boss Pendergast and his machine. |
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Chapters Four and Five, covering the eras of the Warren Court and the 1970s, describe the politicization of the Eighth Circuit, primarily through the appointment of more progressive, liberal judges, including Harry Blackmun, later to be elevated to the Supreme Court. During this period, civil rights was at the forefront of litigation, most notably school desegregation, free speech regarding the war in Vietnam, employment discrimination, and claims of Native Americans. The author gives a brief, yet comprehensive description of the school desegregation cases in Little Rock, St. Louis, and Kansas City. The Little Rock desegregation case was the most "well-known" of these, creating a nationally watched showdown between the governor of Arkansas and President Eisenhower, who had to call in the national guard to enforce the court's desegregation order (162). |
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Chapters Six and Seven describe the Eighth Circuit transitioning into the recent era. In the 1980s, given the economic difficulties facing family-owned farms, the circuit heard many cases involving farm bankruptcies. Other salient categories of cases included employment discrimination, criminal law, Native American law, free speech, as well President Clinton's woes stemming from sexual harassment charges dating from when he was governor of Arkansas. |
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Overall, Morris does excellent work relating the Eighth Circuit's decisions to events and trends that grabbed the regional and national consciousness. If there are any weaknesses, it may be a tendency to set aside individual threads or stories in order to focus on each time period in a comprehensive manner. Completeness and thoroughness is certainly praiseworthy, but it may come at the cost of keeping the reader fully engaged. In addition, the author seems intent on describing the court as overly collegial. However, recent decades have shown much ideological see-sawing within the circuit based on the appointing administration, with some decisions being criticized as ideologically driven. Perhaps bringing some of these ideological debates to the forefront—including the propriety of even having those debates at all—could have made for a more gripping narrative. One other minor flaw is a focus on the more modern material; the first chapter covers 69 years in 38 pages while the last 200 pages only cover 45 years. However, this is probably unavoidable given that documentation is far more available for the recent court years than it was in pre-statehood days. |
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Ultimately, this book is recommended reading not only for those "insiders" who are familiar with the Eighth Circuit, but for all who are interested in the history and development of the United States court system. |
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| Miriam A. Cherry
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University of the Pacific—
McGeorge School of Law |
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