Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion
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Publication Date
10-4-2010
Abstract
A sweeping insider look at the life of William Brennan, champion of free speech and widely considered the most influential Supreme Court justice of the twentieth century
Before his death, William Brennan granted Stephen Wermiel access to volumes of personal and court materials that are sealed to the public until 2017. These are what Jeffrey Toobin has called “a coveted set of documents” that includes Brennan’s case histories—in which he recorded strategies behind all the major battles of the past half century, including Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, the death penalty, obscenity law, and the constitutional right to privacy—as well as more personal documents that reveal some of Brennan's curious contradictions, like his refusal to hire female clerks even as he wrote groundbreaking women’s rights decisions; his complex stance as a justice and a Catholic; and details on Brennan’s unprecedented working relationship with Chief Justice Earl Warren. Wermiel distills decades of valuable information into a seamless, riveting portrait of the man behind the Court's most liberal era.
ISBN
9780547523897
Last Page
688
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
City
New York, NY
Recommended Citation
Wermiel, Stephen and Seth Stern. Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2010.
Comments
STEPHEN WERMIEL, for twelve years the Wall Street Journal’s Supreme Court reporter, teaches constitutional law at American University Washington College of Law, where he also received his law degree.