Kenneth Jost

April 22, 1999 | Law.com

U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared divided and uncertain Wednesday in a potential landmark case from Georgia involving state governments' duties to the mentally ill. Olmstead v. L.C tests whether states that provide treatment for the mentally ill must offer community-based facilities to people who don't require institutionalization. It marks the first time the court has been asked to rule on the question of what services states must offer the mentally ill under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

By Kenneth Jost

6 minute read

November 30, 1999 | Law.com

A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of allowing private whistleblowers to prosecute potentially lucrative suits against state governments in federal court under a Civil War-era anti-fraud law. The court's states' rights-minded justices voiced doubts about the legality of qui tam actions. Justice Stephen Breyer, who typically votes with the liberal bloc on federalism issues, appeared opposed to permitting private parties to use the federal act to trigger claims against states.

By Kenneth Jost

6 minute read

February 03, 2003 | National Law Journal

In his book "Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights," Thomas F. Burke doesn't let trial lawyers off the hook when it comes to stymieing tort reform. But in an insightful and relatively nonpartisan account of the battle over litigation, Burke identifies a different cause of what he calls "the prominence of litigious policies" in the United States: the American system of government itself.

By Kenneth Jost

5 minute read

January 23, 2004 | Law.com

What historian David K. Johnson calls the "lavender scare" of the post-WWII years merged public intolerance of homosexuality with the Cold War fear of communist infiltration -- aka the "red scare." His book, "The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government," says reviewer Kenneth Jost, is an instructive and insightful account of the damage done to thousands of loyal civil servants as well as to the government itself.

By Kenneth Jost

6 minute read

May 07, 2004 | The Legal Intelligencer

The 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education has brought forth an outpouring of books examining the Supreme Court's landmark decision to outlaw racial segregation in public education from all angles. For students of history, two of the most interesting tell the story of the decision - how it came about when it did - in strikingly different ways.

By Kenneth Jost

6 minute read

December 17, 2004 | Law.com

The U.S. Senate is soon likely to take on, for the first time in 10 years, the task of judging one or more presidential nominees to the Supreme Court. Most people in political and legal circles expect the confirmation process to be a bloody brawl. And so, the time is right for another look at the process -- a need Michael Comiskey fills admirably in his book, "Seeking Justices: The Judging of Supreme Court Nominees."

By Kenneth Jost

5 minute read

April 21, 1999 | Law.com

Business interests clashed with states' rights in a pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases Tuesday testing whether state-operated commercial enterprises can be sued in federal court for patent infringement or false advertising. The justices appeared to be divided as they struggled to apply constitutional principles written 200 years ago to the modern world of state-run businesses and laboratories that engage in competition with those in the private sector.

By Kenneth Jost

7 minute read

April 01, 1999 | Law.com

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised Wednesday to give states another victory over federal powers by blocking private citizens from bringing money damages suits against a state in its own courts. The case, Alden v. Maine, arose from an otherwise routine suit by Maine probation officers to collect federally guaranteed overtime pay. But the arguments turned into a sharp debate over principles of federalism and gave the court's conservative majority an opportunity to flex their states' rights muscles.

By Kenneth Jost

5 minute read