Based on exclusive interviews with the Supreme Court Justices themselves and other insiders, The Nine is a timely and provocative "state of the union" about America's most elite legal institution. From Anthony Kennedy's self-importance, to Antonin Scalia's combativeness, to David Souter's eccentricity, and even Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with President George W. Bush, this book offers a rare, personal look at how the individual style of each justice affects the way in which they wield their considerable power.

With the whip-smart analysis for which he is known, Toobin shows how-since Reagan-conservatives were long-thwarted in their attempts to control the Court by some of the very justices they pressured Presidents to appoint. That struggle ended with the recent appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Court, and Toobin relays the behind-the-scenes drama in fascinating detail, as well as the ensuing 2007 Court term.

As the Court continues to rule on important issues that will frame the debates in the 2008 elections, it is essential for every American to better understand how the Court operates. And as a CNN senior legal analyst, New Yorker staff writer, and bestselling author, no one is more superbly qualified to bring clarity to a branch of government that has been shrouded in mystery, yet establishes laws that affect the lives of every citizen in America.


EDITORIAL REVIEWS

From Barnes & Noble
If Jeffrey Toobin is right, Supreme Court decisions are decided less by constitutional law precedent than by personality and political intuition. His gripping behind-the-scenes account of the Court from the Reagan years to the 2006-7 term shows how a consensus of moderation grew in an environment of adversity. Drawing extensively on interviews with the justices themselves, he reveals how such independent, even quirky thinkers worked toward agreement on major issues including abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, church-state separation, and gay rights.

From the Publisher
Based on exclusive interviews with the Supreme Court Justices themselves and other insiders, The Nine is a timely and provocative "state of the union" about America's most elite legal institution. From Anthony Kennedy's self-importance, to Antonin Scalia's combativeness, to David Souter's eccentricity, and even Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with President George W. Bush, this book offers a rare, personal look at how the individual style of each justice affects the way in which they wield their considerable power.

With the whip-smart analysis for which he is known, Toobin shows how-since Reagan-conservatives were long-thwarted in their attempts to control the Court by some of the very justices they pressured Presidents to appoint. That struggle ended with the recent appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Court, and Toobin relays the behind-the-scenes drama in fascinating detail, as well as the ensuing 2007 Court term.

As the Court continues to rule on important issues that will frame the debates in the 2008 elections, it is essential for every American to better understand how the Court operates. And as a CNN senior legal analyst, New Yorker staff writer, and bestselling author, no one is more superbly qualified to bring clarity to a branch of government that has been shrouded in mystery, yet establishes laws that affect the lives of every citizen in America.


The New York Times Book Review - David Margolick
The Nine is engaging, erudite, candid and accessible, often hard to put down. Toobin is a natural storyteller, and the stories he tells--how a coalition of centrist justices saved Roe v. Wade; why Rehnquist, despite having loathed the rights granted to criminal suspects by Miranda v. Arizona, eventually declined to overturn the decision; how right-wing firebrands deep-sixed the Supreme Court candidacies of Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers--are gripping.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
...the Supremes command more attention than ever, and Mr. Toobin's new book The Nine not only provides a vivid narrative history of the court's recent history but also gives the reader an intimate look at individual justices, showing how personality, judicial philosophy and personal alliances can inform decisions that have huge consequences for the entire country...Driven by the author's assured narrative voice, The Nine is as informative as it is fascinating, as insightful as it is readable. It is an altogether crisper, livelier performance than Jan Crawford Greenburg's book on the court (Supreme Conflict), which appeared this year, and it gives the reader a far more tangible sense of the court's day-to-day workings as well as a sharper understanding of issues, like executive power, which are at stake in pending cases.

Publishers Weekly
It's not laws or constitutional theory that rule the High Court, argues this absorbing group profile, but quirky men and women guided by political intuition. New Yorkerlegal writer Toobin (The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson) surveys the Court from the Reagan administration onward, as the justices wrestled with abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, gay rights and church-state separation. Despite a Court dominated by Republican appointees, Toobin paints not a conservative revolution but a period of intractable moderation. The real power, he argues, belonged to supreme swing-voter Sandra Day O'Connor, who decided important cases with what Toobin sees as an "almost primal" attunement to a middle-of-the-road public consensus. By contrast, he contends, conservative justices Rehnquist and Scalia ended up bitter old men, their rigorous constitutional doctrines made irrelevant by the moderates' compromises. The author deftly distills the issues and enlivens his narrative of the Court's internal wranglings with sharp thumbnail sketches (Anthony Kennedy the vain bloviator, David Souter the Thoreauvian ascetic) and editorials ("inept and unsavory" is his verdict on the Court's intervention in the 2000 election). His savvy account puts the supposedly cloistered Court right in the thick of American life. (A final chapter and epilogue on the 2006-2007 term, with new justices Roberts and Alito, was unavailable to PW.) (Sept. 18)
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William D. Pederson - Library Journal
Forty percent of cases that reach the U.S. Supreme Court produce unanimous decisions. It is the others that pose problems, especially those involving issues that the elected branches of government have failed to resolve. In a sense, the Court serves as political umpire, with its decision making done in secret. The world of the Supreme Court has been probed in books like Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren(about the Burger Court). Toobin (Opening Arguments) follows their pattern with the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts, basing his work on interviews with the justices and 75 law clerks (conducted on a not-for-attribution basis). Toobin writes like a skillful literary critic as he attempts to understand the character and values of each justice, their outlook on life, and their jurisprudence. He makes a convincing case that the Rehnquist Court was really Sandra Day O'Connor's moderate Court-she was the swing vote for moderation. Toward the end, Rehnquist largely gave up on transforming the Court in his image. The future direction of the Court, i.e., whether it goes extremist or remains more moderate, is clearly in the hands of the next President. Toobin himself seems hopeful that Justice Stephen Breyer may further promote moderation. Beautifully written, this is an essential purchase for all libraries interested in the contemporary Supreme Court. (The final chapter, on the 2006-07 term, was not available for review.)

Kirkus Reviews
Abortion, gay rights, disputed presidential elections and wartime powers have appeared on the Supreme Court docket under chief justices Rehnquist and Roberts, but this occasionally enlightening, often injudicious account focuses more on prickly egos. CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer Toobin (Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election, 2001, etc.) raises red flags in noting that he conducted confidential interviews "with the justices and more than seventy-five of their law clerks." All the justices-even press-hostile Clarence Thomas and Washington-allergic David Souter? Since these interviews were "on a not-for-attribution basis," how can we judge, for example, the claim that Sandra Day O'Connor found the presidency of George W. Bush "arrogant, lawless, incompetent, and extreme"? This vague sourcing is regrettable, because much about the justices' personalities and deliberations in the last 20 years appears on the record. Moreover, Toobin displays a gift for narrative and abundant insights into how justice-and justices-get made. We learn that in the waning years of the Rehnquist Court, the justices' isolation meant they influenced each other not in chambers, but in public questions during oral arguments. Over the last two decades, Toobin informs us, even the most conservative justices have grown increasingly tolerant toward gay clerks. In another tidbit, we hear that Mario Cuomo tantalized Bill Clinton with his interest in the vacancy that ultimately went to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Despite periodic attempts at fairness, Toobin's views color his characterizations. Liberal Stephen Breyer has "an almost messianic belief in the power of reason,"while more right-leaning justices are dismissed as crusty (the late Byron White) or "famously pugnacious" (Antonin Scalia). Toobin's surprise that Dubya would appoint justices of his own ideological stripe seems disingenuous. Surely such a well-informed writer is aware of the confirmation reverses suffered by LBJ and Nixon in the 1960s and, at a greater extreme, FDR's court-packing scheme of 1937. A smart brief about the high court that suffers from sometimes dubious and occasionally inadmissible historical evidence.

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