MATERIAL IN THIS book was derived primarily from two main sources: public records and personal interviews.
As with any matter that spurs years of litigation across several different courts, the legal paper trail is voluminous, ranging from the initial complaint submitted to Justice Lawrence E. Kahn in Albany to the various responses of various interested parties to the record on appeal to the briefs and reply briefs submitted to the New York State Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court. Every complaint, response, and motion resulted in records that remain in the public domain, and virtually all of those actions resulted in a written judicial decision. In addition, as the case grew more and more prominent over its lengthy life span, it inspired many others not party to the suit to submit amicus briefs. These legal materials account for most of the factual information in this book.
Those official resources were complemented by approximately eighty interviews, most of them tape-recorded, with virtually all of the major actors (the exception being Governor Cuomo, who would not submit to an interview), the leadership of Kiryas Joel, school officials, residents of surrounding communities, public figures, and private citizens. These interviews added significant context, essentially putting meat on the skeletal bones of the legal papers.
Additional sources included myriad published accounts—primarily newspaper articles—on the case as it worked its way up and down the judicial ladder.