Imagine that you are studying in law school, or have started a legal career. Regarding reality, future and ideals, you may have such confusion and confusion, and have encountered such and such setbacks and sorrows.Maybe you don't want to share these thoughts or questions with your teachers and friends, or maybe you have already written to a certain celebrity for consultation, but there is no response.So, you decide to read biographies, of course, preferably biographies of outstanding legal people.You try to find answers to your legal career or legal dreams in books.You want to know how a great lawyer, prosecutor or judge overcomes difficulties, sails the sea and realizes his dreams.However, when you step into a bookstore or library and search the biography column, you find that the bookshelves are full of stories about political and business celebrities, emperors, generals, performers, and literati, but there are very few biographies of lawyers. Must be very disappointed.

In fact, what I said above is not only my experience when I was a student, but also the original intention of planning and editing this set of "Translated Biography of Supreme Court Justices of the United States".In my opinion, reading the biography of an outstanding person will be a strange experience, as if entering an era, a period of history, and having a direct dialogue with a great mind, many respects will arise spontaneously, and many confusions will be solved , many blueprints will gradually take shape.If this person happens to belong to the same industry as yourself, the incentive or reference effect will be further amplified.

The positioning of this series of books is of course not as simple as inspirational. We hope that readers can understand the evolution of American judicial ecology, ideology, and even judicial culture from the growth of a justice, and even the changes, entanglements, and sublimation of thoughts and positions. , have a more perceptual experience and a deeper understanding, and then be able to ask yourself, and have more exploration and thinking about the progress of the rule of law and judicial reform in China. We are by no means pioneers in organizing the translation of the biographies of justices.Ten years ago, the Law Press published the biography of Justice Benjamin Cardoso, and then successively published three justices: Hugo Black, John Marshall Harlan, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The biography of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a Chinese translation of the biography of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, is also said to be available soon.As a judge of the Supreme Court, being able to use my spare time to organize and participate in the introduction, translation and publication of the biographies of outstanding foreign judges, and to continue the dream of my youth in another way is a kind of happiness, and it is also a blessing. responsibility.

This work was started in early 2010. With the strong support and cooperation of China Legal Publishing House, we successfully completed the tasks of selecting books, contacting copyright, and confirming translators.Below, a brief explanation will be given on the selection criteria of the author, bibliography, and translator. About the selection of the hero.Since the founding of the United States, there have been 112 justices on the Supreme Court of the United States.It stands to reason that, no matter in which historical period, most of the people who can become a justice are not mediocre.But the facts have proved that there are indeed many justices who have done nothing in front of them and are unknown behind them, and their achievements are also lacklustre.Therefore, when we determine the candidates for the biography, our vision is more or less "snobbish". Most of the selected "famous people" who have great prestige and outstanding achievements have created a new era of American justice, such as John Marshall, Earl Warren; or once a leading figure in an ideological field, author of many landmark classic judgments, such as Louis Brandeis, William Brennan, Jr., Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stie Vince; in addition, William Rehnquist, who governed well, Antonin Scalia, who was brilliant in wisdom, Robert Jackson, who had extraordinary experience, and so on.

It should be pointed out that for a long time, some readers in China have always had a biased understanding of the dispute between liberals and conservatives within the US Supreme Court.Many people think that liberal justices pay attention to human rights and conform to public opinion, which represent justice, light, and openness, while conservative justices are stubborn and conservative, representing closed, backward, and narrow-mindedness.In order to avoid this kind of misreading out of context, we paid special attention to the balance of ideology when selecting candidates.In the biography, there are liberal justices, conservative justices, and centrist justices who waver between different judicial issues.

on bibliographic selection.The greater the judge, the more people are willing to write his biography.In fact, justices like Marshall, Holmes, Brennan, and Brandeis have multiple biographies.However, some of the early biographies of justices were mostly written by scholars. Although they were able to achieve professional exposition and informative historical materials, the layout and writing of the articles always made people feel too crafty, with many theoretical summaries and few details.Of course, this does not mean that all judge biographies written by scholars have such problems.For example, the biography of Judge Lenid Hand was once hailed as "the best biography of a judge in history" by American intellectuals, and the author of this biography is the famous constitutional scholar Gerald Gunther.

In short, when determining the bibliography of this set of books, we roughly uphold three standards, namely authority, readability and timeliness.In other words, the author is best to be a reporter who has been following and reporting on the affairs of the Supreme Court for a long time, and is very familiar with the historical background, court development, judge personality, and decision-making insider, such as the author of the biography of Blackmun and Scalia, or the author once Due to work or other relationships, he has been in contact with the biographer for a long time, and even kept in touch, such as Rehnquist and Stevens biographer.Although many justices have military experience, judges are not like lawyers, policemen and prosecutors. The most glorious period of their lives is mostly sitting in court asking cases, discussing cases, and writing judgments. In the Supreme Court, they may also I have experienced thrilling battles, but this type of biography will not have so many exciting and tense plots like the biographies of other judicial figures. Of course, the more so, the higher the requirements for the author's ability to control the material and tell the story .Relatively speaking, journalists or columnists have been trained in this area, and they are better at this kind of "public writing" for the public. In addition, in recent years, the private files of many deceased justices have been declassified one after another. Judges are no longer resisting interviews by reporters, and there are naturally more "huge materials" available to various biographers.Therefore, most of the selected books in this series are biographies published after the 21st century or even in the last five years.

About the choice of translators.Translation, especially the translation of legal and cultural works between literary works and academic works, is usually a thankless task.In the academic circle, such works are often not regarded as academic achievements, and it is impossible to obtain more returns from royalties like literary bestsellers.Moreover, for works such as the biography of a justice, the translator must have a thorough understanding of American political culture, judicial status quo, and the history of the Supreme Court. Obscure and awkward.For this reason, when selecting translators, we have more of a mentality of looking for like-minded people, and do not pay attention to the author's education background, professional title and reputation.Most of the translators identified so far were “scourered” from the group of authors on Douban or the online magazine Zongheng Weekly.Among them, some have studied American politics for a long time and have studied political science overseas; some have worked in the United States for many years, are familiar with the culture and life there, and have written books observing the current state of American justice; some have been following the developments of the Supreme Court of the United States , There are often wonderful essays and short comments.In short, everything is just getting started. I hope that more people who are interested in American judicial culture and are willing to devote themselves to the cause of translation can contact me ([email protected]) and volunteer to join our team.We hope that among our readers, there will be Chinese future university scholars, barristers or judges.

It is for sequence.