Читать книгу Justice Rehnquist, the Supreme Court, and the Bill of Rights - Steven T. Seitz - Страница 3

I want to thank members of the Computational Modeling Laboratory, University of Illinois, especially Charles Hulin with whom I have collaborated on many projects over the years. Regardless of content, my CML colleagues have persevered through many long manuscripts and offered thoughtful and helpful comments. We continue to develop our model of the smart page, which includes a multidimensional lazy Susan floating column of every source of information a user might wish to access for any word or phrase while reading a text page. The floating design allows the user to look behind words and phrases in the reference panes presented on the lazy Susan. Modeling the chronological development of topics across court decisions is much more complicated than might appear, because justices sometimes shift the case precedents from one legal line of reasoning to another, even though the basic facts of the case bear striking resemblance to other cases buried under a different line of legal reasoning. These lateral shifts are more frequent than changing or overturning precedents. Accounting for these lateral shifts requires a complex rule base larger and more complicated than the rule base for vertical shifts overturning or marginalizing precedents. The research presented in this book has been instrumental in advancing the computational work.

Charles Warren’s great book The Supreme Court in United States History developed an excellent historical picture by term and has been helpful in illuminating the nature of the times. The chronologies by topic developed in this and a previous book, The Supreme Court, the Constitution, and Justice Rehnquist, are essential for developing the genetic picture of a dynamic court. In his preface, Warren suggested he should have developed the book by themes, but development by terms was much more manageable when he started his book in the early 1920s. The new books help address this void and allow progress on the large rule bases for the computational model. The concurrences and dissents have been instrumental in elaborating the rule bases.

I need to offer special thanks to my family. They have become accustomed to daddy working at the computer all hours of the night. Fortunately, this work did not count toward my monthly download quota. The bed near the computer is now well-worn but routinely full. I need to give special thanks to D.D., B.R.B, S.B., B.D., the rowdy boy, and Gretchen. Fortunately, their sleep schedule continued to correspond with my work schedule. I owe a special thanks to my editor, Becca Rohde Beurer, for her support and assistance in bringing this work to a close.

Steven T. Seitz

Department of Political Science

Computational Modeling Laboratory, CLAS

University of Illinois

Urbana/Champaign