Federal judges below the U.S. Supreme Court receive episodic public attention. Polly Price's judicial biography of Arkansan Richard S. Arnold, Judge Richard S. Arnold, is a noteworthy exception. Born in 1936 into a prominent lawyer family of Texarkana, Arnold displayed exceptional intellectual skills while attending Phillip Exeter Academy. He graduated first in his class at Yale University and then Harvard Law School. Arnold's mother, Janet Sheppard Arnold, instilled in him progressive attitudes towards African Americans. He nonetheless also shared the southern conservatism of his Texan great grandfather, a U.S. representative, and grandfather, a representative and U.S. senator. Clerking for Justice William J. Brennan transformed Arnold into a moderate liberal concerning civil rights and liberties; Justice Hugo L. Black also inspired greater liberalism. After practicing briefly in Washington D.C., Arnold returned to the family law firm, establishing an impressive record, including success as a pioneering environmental defense lawyer. Failing to win two congressional elections, Arnold supported progressive Arkansas governor Dale Bumpers.

When Bumpers was elected to the U.S. Senate, Arnold became his legislative aide. As Price relates it, riding an elevator in the congressional building during 1978, Bumpers introduced Arnold to James O. Eastland, Mississippi's powerful chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bumpers told Eastland he wanted Arnold to be a federal judge in Little Rock; Eastland consented on the spot. Challenging senatorial patronage, President Jimmy Carter's merit commissions implemented gender and racial guidelines constituting a civil rights “litmus test (129)” for federal judicial appointments. Attorney General Griffin Bell expected that Arnold's appointment would facilitate George Howard becoming Arkansas' first African American federal judge. Arnold served on the district court for about a year. Bumpers then achieved a “three-way deal (175)” whereby Arnold moved to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and Howard was appointed to the district court, along with civil rights lawyer Henry Woods.

Ronald Reagan's Republican conservatism constituted new litmus tests emphasizing factors such as abortion. Accordingly, under the George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations merit judicial selection became entangled in periodic Senate filibusters. Moreover, the merit selection process—which included an assessment of a candidate's medically diagnosed health—did not inhibit partisan Supreme Court nominations. Arnold appeared on Clinton's short list for two such nominations. Nevertheless, an extraordinary record as an appellate court judge could not overcome the health issues arising from Arnold's ongoing cancer treatments, which signaled a potentially shortened Supreme Court tenure. After years in which younger Republican conservatives had been placed upon the Court, Clinton thus chose Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer over Arnold. He died in 2004.

About half the book incisively examines Arnold's civil rights, civil liberties decisions, and other types of cases. Price presents the facts, analysis, legal holding, and results of each case so accessibly that judges, lawyers, and nonlawyers alike will readily appreciate why colleagues, litigators, commentators, and members of the Supreme Court repeatedly praised Arnold's judicial craftsmanship. Chapters consider in succession: the death penalty, free speech, and the First Amendment, the right of privacy and abortion, the protracted Little Rock school desegregation litigation, voting rights, and judicial holdings known as “unpublished opinions,” the outcomes of which only the litigants and their lawyers know, and thus lack standing as precedent. In each category Arnold was an innovator, displaying not only masterful doctrinal analysis but also an extraordinary perception into the impact such analysis had on institutions, and above all, peoples' lives.

A second edition might address some caveats. Price's focus upon Judge Arnold's civil rights and civil liberties cases is understandable, especially given their favorable reception by the Supreme Court. Still, it would be useful to have insight into his contribution to the 8th Circuit's other litigation, such as antitrust, a field Arnold had practiced at Covington and Burling and taught at the University of Virginia Law School. In addition, some dates of famous Supreme Court cases appear incorrectly, confusing the chronology discussed in the text, including Cooper v. Aaron, which was filed in February 1958, not late 1957. More importantly, preceding the 1957 crisis the Little Rock school board's initial desegregation plan permitted a small number of African American students not in three high schools, but only Central High. The distinction is profoundly significant. The school board's explicit refusal to permit token desegregation of all-white Hall High—located in the city's upper-income Pulaski Heights—encouraged Governor Orval Faubus to abandon racial moderation in favor of demagoguery exploiting race and social class issues.

Even so, through one judge's inspiring life on and off the bench, this book extends understanding of the significant yet often obscure federal court system. Polly Price has written a model judicial biography, truly worthy of the brilliant, wise, and humane judge, Richard S. Arnold.