William Joseph Brennan

William Brennan (1976)

William Joseph Brennan (born April 25, 1906 in Newark , New Jersey , † July 24, 1997 in Washington, DC ) was an American lawyer and from 1956 to 1990 a judge at the Supreme Court of the United States . He was considered to be extremely liberal in his views and statements, which was expressed in particular by his consistent and negative attitude towards the death penalty , which was expressed in many decisions, and his support for the right to abortion . Since he was involved in the making of a number of far-reaching decisions of principle during his almost 34-year tenure, which was one of the longest of all American constitutional judges, he is one of the most influential judges in the recent history of the court.

Life

Education and family

William Brennan was born in 1906, the second of eight children to Irish immigrants . His father, who initially worked as a metal polisher, was Newark City Public Safety Officer from 1917 to 1930. Brennan attended public schools in Newark and received here at the Barringer High School and his high-school graduation . At the age of 21 he married; with his wife Marjorie Leonard he later had two sons and a daughter. After the death of his first wife in 1982, he married his long-time secretary Mary Fowler a year later.

He began studying at the University of Pennsylvania , which he finished in 1928 with a degree in economics . He then studied law at the law school of Harvard University and graduated in 1931. He subsequently practiced in his home state, New Jersey, as a lawyer in the law firm Pitney, Hardin, and Skinner , which he later partnered with, and specialized in labor law . From 1942 to 1945 he served in the United States Army as a member of the human resources department for materials procurement. After the end of the war he returned to his office.

His career as a judge began in 1949 with an appeal by the Governor of New Jersey to the Superior Court , a state court for civil , criminal , and appeals proceedings . Two years later he was appointed a judge on the New Jersey Supreme Court by the governor.

Supreme Court Justice

On September 30, 1956, William Brennan was appointed to the United States Supreme Court by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower . The appointment was made within the framework of a so-called Recess Appointment , i.e. bypassing the Senate during a break in the session. Brennan was later confirmed by the Senate with only one vote against, making it the 90th judge in the history of the court as the successor to Sherman Minton . He started working on October 16, 1956.

Commentary by William Brennan on the Miranda judgment

William Brennan was considered one of the most liberal judges throughout his tenure on the Supreme Court . In particular during the time of the court under the leadership of the presiding judge Earl Warren , he played an important role in the judgments to expand civil rights , such as in 1966 in the landmark judgment Miranda v. Arizona . These and a number of other decisions were characteristic of the work of the liberally dominated Warren Court and changed the society of the United States beyond its era. Earl Warren and William Brennan had a close friendship during this period. This led to the nickname "Deputy chief" (deputy boss) for William Brennan, since Earl Warren often assigned him the task of formulating the majority opinion in decisions. In 1962 he wrote the decision in the Baker v. Carr , through which the standard “One man, one vote” was established as the basis for the assessment of electoral districts. Earl Warren described this decision as the most important of his tenure as presiding judge after his retirement from the court. William Brennan acted at the Warren Court in particular mediating the conservative judges in order to convince them to support the corresponding court decisions.

After the court later attained an increasingly moderate profile under the leadership of Judge Warren E. Burger , William Brennan distinguished himself primarily as a staunch opponent of the death penalty and a supporter of the right to abortion . Important decisions during this time were Furman v. Georgia , with which the use of the death penalty was suspended in 1972, and Gregg v. Georgia , through which the readmission took place. In addition to Thurgood Marshall , William Brennan was the only judge who held the death penalty under all circumstances unconstitutional in both judgments, as in his opinion it would violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishments contained in the eighth amendment to the constitution . As a result, he and Thurgood Marshall rejected the majority opinion in Gregg v. Georgia ex. The most important decision on the question of abortion was the Roe v. Wade in 1973, which established a basic right to abortion. Important for this judgment was the decision in the Eisenstadt v. Baird a year earlier, which lifted a contraceptive ban on women.

With the appointment of William Rehnquist as presiding judge, who was considered the most conservative member of the court at the time, and the appointment of Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy to succeed Warren E. Burger and Lewis F. Powell , the direction of the court shifted clearly conservative. This left only two liberal judges from the Warren era, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, and both saw themselves increasingly isolated in their attitudes. Their joint approach in a number of cases, particularly their consistent rejection of all decisions confirming a death sentence, earned them the title “Justice Brennan-Marshall” among the bailiffs and interns. In the judgment of Glass v. Louisiana , where the Conservative majority in 1985 judged an electric chair to be constitutionally compatible, William Brennan described this method of execution as "no less than the contemporary technological equivalent of burning people at the stake." A focus of his work in the 1980s were decisions such as United States v. Weber Aircraft Corp. (1984) and Johnson v. Transportation Agency of Santa Clara County (1987) on affirmative action , i.e. on guidelines for the preference of minorities in the allocation of offices, study places, jobs and similar decisions with the aim of equality. In the final stages of his tenure, he wrote the majority opinions in the decisions of Texas v. Johnson (1989) and United States v. Eichman (1990), in which the burning of the United States flag was judged as a freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment .

Withdrawal from judicial office and death

William Joseph Brennan retired on July 20, 1990 for health reasons. In the following years he taught at Georgetown University until 1994 . In addition, he remained connected to the court as so-called senior justice until his death , including the option of serving in lower federal courts if necessary. In 1991, Brennan was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . On November 30, 1993, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom , one of the highest civilian awards in the United States. In the course of his life he survived, among other things, a larynx cancer and two strokes , and died in 1997 after a long hospital stay of complications from a hip injury . His final resting place is in Arlington National Cemetery .

Legal Philosophy and Evaluation

William Brennan reached one of the longest terms in the history of the United States Supreme Court at nearly 34 years of age, and has been involved in some of the most significant decisions in recent history. During this time he worked with 22 other judges in the court, which at the time of his retirement represented a fifth of all judges ever serving on the Supreme Court. With a total of 1,360 opinions, including 461 majority opinions, he is one of the most active, influential and important judges of his era. The conservative National Review wrote in 1984, during his tenure, that no one had a deeper and more lasting influence on public order in the United States than William Brennan. His successor David Souter referred to him in his funeral oration as the voice of the court during its liberal phase.

However, his work was not undisputed. His legal philosophy was based primarily on a contemporary interpretation of the Constitution of the United States , which he in this sense as a "living document" ( living document ) considered. He attached only limited importance to the concept of stare decisis , i.e. a strict connection to previous decisions. His views were thus in direct contradiction to strict constructionism , a literal interpretation of the constitution, as practiced and is practiced by most conservative judges. Many of his decisions and statements were criticized as judicial activism. The nomination of William Brennans by Dwight D. Eisenhower took place against the background of his Irish Catholic origin and his political orientation, mainly for reasons of election tactics. Eisenhower later viewed his decision as one of the most serious mistakes of his tenure.

Works (selection)

• The Bill of Rights and the States. Contribution to the Discussion of the Free Society. Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1961
• Construing the Constitution. University of California Davis, 1985
• Fundamentals of American Law. Oxford University Press, 1996

literature

• David E. Marion: The Jurisprudence of Justice William J. Brennan, Jr .: The Law and Politics of Libertarian Dignity. A Political and Constitutional Study. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham MD 1997, ISBN 0-8476-8566-7
• Stephen L. Sepinuck, Mary P. Treuthart: The Conscience of the Court: Selected Opinions of Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. on Freedom and Equality. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale 1999, ISBN 0-8093-2234-X
• Kim Isaac Eisler: The Last Liberal: Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and the Decisions That Transformed America. Beard Books, Washington DC 2003, ISBN 1-58798-271-4
• William Joseph Brennan, Jr. In: Melvin I. Urofsky: The Warren Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2001, ISBN 1-57607-160-X , pp. 60-63
• William J. Brennan. In: Thomas R. Hensley, Kathleen Hale, Carl Snook: The Rehnquist Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2006, ISBN 1-57607-200-2 , pp. 36-41

Web links

• Brennan Center for Justice (English)
• The Oyez Project - William J. Brennan, Jr. (English)