This book comprehensively examines the United States legal system.

Jeffrey A. Segal is Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University. He received his Ph.D. in 1983 from Michigan State University. He is co-author of six books, including, most recently, The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited (Cambridge University Press, 2002, with Harold J. Spaeth). He is also author of Majority Rule or Minority Will (Cambridge University Press 1999, with Harold J. Spaeth), which won the C. Herman Pritchett Award for best book on law and courts. Segal has also published dozens of scholarly articles, including Predicting Supreme Court Cases Probabilistically: The Search and Seizure Cases, 1962-1981, which won the Wadsworth Award for book or article 10 or more years old that has made a lasting impression on the field of law and courts.

List of illustrations; List of tables; Preface; Part I. Introduction: 1. Judicial policy making; 2. Approaches to judicial decision making; 3. The Supreme Court in American legal history; Part II. Judicial Process: 4. Civil procedure; 5. Evidence; 6. Criminal procedure; Part III. Lower Courts in the American Legal System: 7. State courts; 8. The U.S. district courts; 9. The U.S. courts of appeals; Part IV. The Supreme Court: 10. Staffing the court; 11. Getting into court; 12. Supreme Court decision making; 13. Opinions and assignments; Part V. Impact: 14. The impact of judicial decisions; Case index.; General index.