David M. O’Brien in 1986. In his writings about the Supreme Court, he treated it as a political institution as much as a legal one. Claudine O’Brien
David M. O’Brien, a scholar and author who dissected the Supreme Court’s internal machinations and ideological dynamics, treating it as a political institution as much as a legal one, died on Dec. 20 at his home in Charlottesville, Va. He was 67.
His daughter Sara O’Brien said the cause was lung cancer.
Dr. O’Brien taught politics at the University of Virginia for almost four decades. He wrote, co-wrote or edited more than a dozen books, the best known of which was “Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics” (1986), which won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and is now in its 11th printing.
“Storm Center” focuses on the inner workings of the court and its culture, which Dr. O’Brien said is often more chaotic than it appears. The book takes its title from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, “We are all quiet here, but it’s the quiet of a storm center.”
As Dr. O’Brien said during a C-Span interview in 1986, “Within the court internally there is a dynamic, a political dynamic, in which justices compete for power, compete for influence over the final decisions.”
That dynamic intrigued Dr. O’Brien, and he examined the court through the lens of the justices’ backgrounds, personalities and behind-the-scenes interactions.
“David came to realize that behavioral science was a better window into the justices’ thinking than the cases and statutes they would cite in an opinion,” Ronald K. L. Collins, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law, said in a telephone interview.
“Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics” by David M. O’Brien.
Over the years, Dr. O’Brien met and interviewed numerous justices and their colleagues and combed through their archives as well as presidential libraries for insights into their opinions.
He viewed the court as a human institution with great flexibility, changing with the times and the composition of the court. This view sprang from his time as a judicial fellow there in 1982 and 1983 and…
