Author Susan Shelley shines a light on the inside game that has allowed the U.S. Supreme Court to seize control of state and local laws on issues from topless dancing to panhandling, from drug searches to abortion, from prison management to the death penalty. Read the true story of how the Supreme Court interpreted away the powers reserved to the states and replaced them with what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia called "the biggest stretch that the Court has made."This 2011 eBook edition of an earlier work contains updates on the Supreme Court's decisions regarding the Second Amendment right to own a gun, the First Amendment right to protest at military funerals, the Fourth Amendment defense against strip-searches in schools, and the federal court order to release over 30,000 convicted felons from California state prisons.Includes complete source notes and a bibliography.