Law and legal significance in Brad Meltzer's The Tenth Justice

Tenth Justice

Influence of the Law in the Tenth Justice

Brad Melzer's debut novel the Tenth Justice is a fast-paced legal thriller that follows the misadventures of recent Yale Law School graduate Ben Addison during his year -- or part of a year, ultimately -- as a United States Supreme Court law clerk. As Addison and the reader learns right at the start of the novel, law clerks in the Supreme Court (at least in Melzer's fictional world) have an inordinate amount of power in the shaping of Supreme Court decisions and thus the establishment and development of law at the federal level, and on a very lasting basis. While it is far from certain that the situation as presented and described by Melzer is truly representative of reality, the position of influence that Addison finds himself provides the impetus for the action of the book, when he accidentally leaks a decision he is working on to someone with plans for underhanded financial gain. The fix is in, the blackmail begins, and Addison must spend the rest of the novel trying to beat his new nemesis at his own game, out-conning the con and staying ahead of the authority of the Court, who suspects he has been leaking information, and his roommates, one of whom might be in league with the unsavory investor now blackmailing Ben.

Many of the characters in the novel seem to be motivated not by the law, which the Supreme Court and the "tenth justice" are supposed to uphold, but rather by the ability to bend or break the law. That is, it is in the complexities and intricacies of the legal system and the ability to which these complexities can be manipulated that the characters and the reader ultimately finds enjoyment. Addison breaks the spirit of the law if not the letter, whether intentionally or not, when he leaks information to the shady investor Rick, and he continues to talk to his roommates about goings-on at the Court in a manner that is far more loose and open than is wise or warranted -- he is motivated by his involvement with and manipulation of the law, and indeed by his status outside the law, not by the law itself. If he were truly interested in upholding the law, the novel would have progress with Addison admitting his mistake early on and working with authorities to correct the problem and bring the more purposeful wrongdoers to justice (and the novel likely wouldn't have been publishable). The same basic motivation can be applied to Rick, as well. Though there is definitely an element of greed driving Rick's actions, there is also the sense that derives real pleasure from his status above or outside the law, where he is able make decisions based on information he is not supposed to have, and to pull strings in order to acquire that information. Rick manipulates the law and the legal system for personal gain and aggrandizement, just like Ben Addison, and watching these characters enjoy these manipulations is what creates enjoyment on the part of the reader as a sort of naughty thrill.

One could even argue that the entire premise of the book exploits the degree to which the legal system has been corrupted and become incredibly malleable and too easily manipulated. The word "corruption" most often calls actions like bribery or kickbacks to mind, and while there are examples of this type of corruption in the Tenth Justice this is not the type of corruption that is truly insidious or causal of the plot in the novel. Instead, it is the illegality -- or at least the alegality -- of the structure of the Supreme Court as presented by Melzer (which is likely rooted in some truth, if exaggerated in the fictional world) that creates the power structures and conflicts that allows the plot to take place. The Constitution of the United States establishes the Supreme Court, but says nothing of law clerks being legally employable and paid for by federal dollars, and certainly says nothing about law clerk fresh out of law school being responsible for the research and interpretative acumen to effectively render Supreme Court decisions. The Court is very specifically described, and while it would be foolish to attempt to read a full rationale for the Court's design into the subtext of the Constitution it can be assumed with a high degree of certainty that the foundational body of law in the land was not intended to give supreme judicial power to a group of relatively unknown individuals who were not appointed to the Court and who had no practical experience as lawyers or judges. Altering the Court in this fashion places the Court itself outside the law, operating in a no-man's land that lacks real control or definition. It is precisely because there is so much ambiguity and grey area that Addison is able to do the things he does, both his initial creation of the central conflict of the novel and his ongoing attempts to redress the wrongs he has committed and restore "balance" to this bastardized Court.