William J. Brennan Jr.

His father polished metal in Newark for a living, having arrived from County Roscommon with almost no schooling, and rose to run the city's Department of Public Safety from 1927 to 1930. Brennan was the second of eight children. He got into Princeton and enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania instead because his father preferred it, moved to the Wharton School, and took an economics degree cum laude in 1928. He married Marjorie Leonard, whom he had met in high school, at 21. Harvard Law followed, and a degree near the top of the class in 1931. Then 14 years of labor law at a Newark firm, mostly on the management side, broken by four years in the Army that ended with a colonel's eagles and a Legion of Merit.

Eisenhower recess-appointed him to the Supreme Court on October 15, 1956, three weeks before the presidential election. The calculation was demographic: advisers wanted a Catholic Democrat from the Northeast, Cardinal Spellman had asked for one, and the attorney general had heard him give a speech that sounded conservative on criminal procedure. Joseph McCarthy, who had read him calling anti-Communist investigations witch-hunts, cast the only vote against. What followed ran 34 years and 1,360 opinions, second only to William O. Douglas. Baker v. Carr made legislative districting a matter courts could decide. New York Times v. Sullivan made public officials prove actual malice. Goldberg v. Kelly required a hearing before the state could cut off welfare. Eisenstadt v. Baird, Craig v. Boren, Texas v. Johnson. Warren handed him so many majorities that the other justices called him the deputy Chief.

He wrote Roth v. United States in 1957, the opinion that gave obscenity prosecutions a workable constitutional footing, and spent the next 16 years trying to undo it, dissenting in Miller v. California that obscenity law could not be squared with the First Amendment at all. He was a practicing Catholic who joined the majority in Roe v. Wade and helped shape it. And after Furman v. Georgia he and Thurgood Marshall concluded that the death penalty was unconstitutional in every case, and then dissented from every denial of review in a capital case and every decision that let a death sentence stand — more than 1,400 of them. They never got a fifth vote. Harry Blackmun came around in 1994, four years after Brennan had left the bench.

A mild stroke ended it on July 20, 1990. His doctors told him a worse one was coming if he stayed, and David Souter took the seat. He taught at Georgetown until 1994, took the Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton in 1993, and watched former clerks open the Brennan Center for Justice in 1995. He fell in November 1996, broke his hip, and died on July 24, 1997, at 91, in an Arlington nursing home. Both sides still use him: liberals as the man who assembled the Warren Court's majorities one vote at a time, originalists as the reason their project was needed — a reading he anticipated in 1985, calling the demand for original intention arrogance cloaked as humility.

William J. Brennan Jr.'s life against the full span of the corpus.

• Roth v. United States case
  His obscenity standard, which he spent 16 years repudiating 1957
• Baker v. Carr case
  Made the drawing of legislative districts something a court could hear 1962
• New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case
  Public officials must prove actual malice to win a libel suit 1964
• Goldberg v. Kelly case
  At his retirement he named this the most important case he wrote 1970
• Craig v. Boren case
  Heightened scrutiny for laws that discriminate by sex 1976
• Texas v. Johnson case
  Burning the flag is protected expression 1989

• 1931 aged ~25 Graduates near the top of his Harvard Law class He had transferred into Wharton at Penn at his father's insistence.
• March 1942 aged 35 Commissioned a major and spends the war on Army manpower work He was discharged a colonel in 1946 with the Legion of Merit.
• 1951 aged ~45 Joins the Supreme Court of New Jersey
• October 15, 1956 aged 50 Eisenhower recess-appoints him three weeks before the election The advisers wanted a Catholic Democrat from the Northeast.
• 1957 aged ~51 Confirmed with Joseph McCarthy casting the only vote against McCarthy had read his speech calling anti-Communist investigations witch-hunts.
• March 9, 1964 aged 57 Writes New York Times v. Sullivan The actual-malice rule that rebuilt American libel law.
• 1972 aged ~66 After Furman, begins dissenting from every capital case the Court declines He and Thurgood Marshall filed more than 1,400 such dissents.
• October 1985 aged 79 Calls the demand for original intention arrogance cloaked as humility A Georgetown speech answering Attorney General Edwin Meese.
• July 20, 1990 aged 84 Retires after a mild stroke

• Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890–1969
  34th President and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II. appointed by
• Joseph McCarthy 1908–1957
  Senator whose unsupported accusations and investigations gave “McCarthyism” its name and damaged civil liberties. opposed by
• Thurgood Marshall 1908–1993
  First African American Supreme Court Justice and lead attorney in Brown v. Board of Education. closest ally on the bench
• Earl Warren 1891–1974
  Chief justice whose Court transformed civil rights, voting, representation, and criminal procedure. wrote the majorities for
• Antonin Scalia 1936–2016
  Justice whose advocacy of originalism and textualism transformed American legal interpretation. argued against
• William Rehnquist 1924–2005
  Chief justice who led the Court’s conservative shift toward federalism and limits on congressional power. isolated by the court of