Legal research, by tradition dreary and droning, is epitomised by the study Mental Decrepitude on the US Supreme Court. It is 93 pages of dreary, depressing documentation.
David Garrow did the research, wrote the pages, and published them in the University of Chicago Law Review. At the time, seven years ago, Garrow was presidential distinguished professor at the Emory School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia. He is now a senior fellow at Homerton College, at the University of Cambridge.
Garrow sought out, studied, and savoured the eyebrow-raising late-in-life behaviour of America’s highest judges….
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.