PBS' look at Supreme Court is captivating and thorough
This is pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to history on public televis i on. One hesitates to say such a thing because it carries the whiff of broccoli forced upon a child. But "The Supreme Court" is a gripping tale, well told, rippling with all the tensions of the American story.
Popular American history is usually presented through the prism of the presidency. We parse our past through the leadership of the executive branch and its wars with the Congress. Rarely do we focus on the Supreme Court, created almost as an afterthought by the founding fathers. So this program is long overdue, and its four hours, which fly by, go a long way to explain why American society is the way it is today.
The court has been at the center of one constitutional storm after another since early in its existence. Consider: Federalism, slavery, labor relations, school segregation, suffrage, abortion, the death penalty, and the election of George Bush in 2000 -- the list is as long as it is familiar. Yet these fights assume new clarity viewed from the court's perspective.
"The Supreme Court" is, unabashedly, an intellectual exercise. Photographs and footage of relevant events and individuals are properly overshadowed by the primacy of the talking head, who must synthesize legal and social history for us. Anyone looking for juicy anecdotes about intramural behavior among justices will be disappointed. What we get instead is grown-up history.
Luminaries like Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts and retired Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor appear, along side a broad array of first-rate scholars. Howard Gillman of the University of Southern California and Joseph Kobylka of Southern Methodist University excel at explaining legal issues in layman's terms as well as the cultural conflicts behind them. The actor David Strathairn narrates in clear, simple language.
If you watch nothing else, catch the first and third episodes, which introduce us to two of the most important and compelling figures in American history -- John Marshall and Hugo Black. Marshall, a Federalist from Virginia who served as Chief Justice from 1801 to his death in 1835, essentially created the Supreme Court we recognize today. (The court began with six justices, who regularly rode circuit, hearing all kinds of cases, without a courtroom of its own.) In Marbury v . Madison in 1803, Marshall outmaneuvered his intractable foe and distant cousin, Thomas Jefferson, to establish the court's power of judicial review and role as the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution.
Black, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan from the hardscrabble hills of Alabama, became the unlikely beacon on the court for the extension of civil rights during his years on the bench as an associate justice from 1937 to 1971.
Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, he was a powerful force behind the demolition of segregated schools, the right of a defendant to a lawyer, and the requirement of police to advise suspects of their rights in the Miranda decision, among many such expansive rulings. He was so reviled in his native Alabama for his views that he had to wear a bulletproof vest when returning home and ultimately stopped visiting altogether.
In its final episode, "The Rehnquist Revolution," the program presents a coherent look at the conservative counterattack to the liberalism of the Warren court that began in the mid-1980s. William Rehnquist presided as Chief Justice as the court moved steadily to the right with appointments by Ronald Reagan and both presidents Bush. What the Rehnquist court may be best remembered for was the rank political decision to interfere in the Florida recount after the 2000 election.
You don't need a law degree to appreciate any of this. Just curiosity.
Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com 
