Overturned: The Rhetoric of Overruling in the United States Supreme Court

Summary

An audacious US Supreme Court is overturning a number of long-standing precedents, and Overturned offers a lively account of the court's history of overturning prior cases and examples and analyses of 300 cases overruled in its history.

The immense controversy surrounding the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022, which overruled Roe v. Wade and erased the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, has focused public attention on how and why the Supreme Court knocks down long-established precedents. Clarke Rountree recounts the rhetorical pirouettes and linguistic acrobatics the court has deployed to explain its reversal of Dobbs and numerous other landmark decisions. He reviews strategies the court uses to undermine a previous court's standing without undermining its own. He analyzes overrulings across time, by type, by the ages of the overturned precedents, with changes in the court's membership, and through other variables. Rountree gives engrossing accounts of pivotal overrulings in the past and applies his myriad insights to the politically fraught Dobbs case.

Overruled makes a valuable contribution to law, rhetoric, politics, and history, and listeners interested in the role and function of America's highest court will find Rountree's account fast-paced, lively, and engaging.