Word: brennan
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WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, 74, a Republican appointed by Eisenhower in 1957, has been a consistent liberal with a broad view of judicial powers. The court's only Roman Catholic, voted to end obstacles to abortion, then suffered through demands that he be excommunicated. Personally distrusts the press, and in recent years has generally avoided interviews, but devoutly defends First Amendment rights. Is known to dislike Nixon so much that three years ago, when tempted to resign in order to spend more time with his seriously ill wife, he decided to stay in office rather than let the President appoint another...
...their main decision, St. Clair drew relatively few objections to his contention that the Watergate grand jury did not have the right to name Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator in the cover-up case. "For the purposes of our decision, we can just lay that fact aside," Justice Brennan observed. But St. Clair claimed that it had already prejudiced the impeachment inquiry against Nixon and that he had been unfairly reduced to "an 85% President...
...impeachment that obviously most concerned St. Clair. Reversing their normal roles of worrying about the ultimate impact of a decision rather than the narrow legal question before the court, the more liberal Justices this time seemed to dismiss impeachment as of no concern in this case. Declared Brennan: "You have not convinced me that we are drawn into it by deciding this case. How are we drawn into the impeachment proceedings by deciding this case...
...Echoing Brennan. Some publishers and movie officials felt the decision might help force porn-hunting prosecutors to distinguish between purple movies and publications and those that are merely blue. The ruling, said Film Industry Spokesman Jack Valenti, had strengthened "the freedom of the film maker to tell an honest story without hard-core pornography." Others were less enthusiastic. Echoing Justice Brennan, Playboy Enterprises' Robert A. Gutwillig complained that Carnal Knowledge was "a pitching back to the case-by-case review. The court is saying we don't know what it [pornography] is, but we'll know...
...quiet spread of a kind of laissez-faire attitude toward pornography below the level of judges and prosecutors. It may well be that both the Supreme Court and its critics have lagged behind the country. The national mood could be pointing to an uncensored future, envisioned by Justice Brennan, in which consenting adults will be free to decide for themselves what they will read...