Justice Brennan: The Great Conciliator

Clark's biography defends the jurisprudential legacy of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, whose opinions have generally been more respected by laypersons than by legal scholars. Clark argues that Brennan's liberal decisions on free speech, the rights of women and minorities, electoral reapportionment, abortion and criminal defendants' rights have exerted a profound impact on public policy and jurisprudence. Brennan's Irish-Catholic, working-class roots in Newark, N.J., where his father was a trade union leader and politician, lent iron determination to his self-deprecating manner. He became a colonel and troubleshooter for army procurement during WWII, a New Jersey state judge and an outspoken, early critic of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. As Supreme Court Justice, Brennan was a coalition builder in the 1960s and fought a rearguard action during the Court's conservative retrenchment of the 1970s and '80s right up to his retirement in 1990. Drake University law professor Clark (Thurgood Marshall) shows that Brennan's decisions gave the guarantees of free speech and press unprecedented force. Photos not seen by PW. (May)