Word: brennan
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...court also held that although there is no proof that capital punishment is effective as a deterrent, it is "an expression of society's moral outrage at particularly offensive conduct," and therefore "an extreme sanction suitable to the most extreme crimes." Only dissenting Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan reaffirmed the traditional liberal view that all executions are, as Marshall put it, a "total denial of human dignity and worth...
Though Burger was writing for the court, a majority of the Justices seemed ready to go further than he had. Brennan, joined by Stewart and Marshall, wrote flatly that "there can be no prohibition on the publication by the press of any information pertaining to pending judicial proceedings or the operation of the criminal justice system." Byron White and John Paul Stevens in separate opinions each indicated that they were also close to that view. All the Justices pointed out that there were other ways of protecting a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights-including moving or delaying the trial...
...rare public speech this spring before the New Jersey State Bar Association, Justice Brennan, obviously unhappy in his new position in a minority, condemned his colleagues for acting "increasingly to bar the federal courthouse door" to "the litigants most in need of judicial protection of their rights -the poor, the underprivileged, the deprived minorities...
Looking Elsewhere. As Brennan went on to point out, an inevitable and perhaps desirable adjustment has begun. Lawyers are looking away from the Supreme Court as the sole source of legal wisdom and progress; instead, they are pressing novel claims on receptive state supreme courts. The top courts in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey and South Dakota -among others-have all shown a willingness to go further on certain issues than has the nation's top court. For instance, the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1973 declared the unequal funding of public schools through local property taxes...
...Peter J. Brennan, LL.D., former Secretary of Labor...