A biography of one of the greatest Supreme Court Justices of this century explores his role in landmark decisions on pornography, libel, desegregation, search and seizure, and legislative redistricting.
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Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
In this brisk, agreeable account, Washingtonian Magazine national editor Eisler (Shark Tank, 1990) pays tribute to the great liberal jurist, recapitulating the judicial achievements of Brennan's long and influential Supreme Court career. A progressive who interpreted the Bill of Rights expansively in favor of individual rights, Brennan was the ``lapel-pulling playmaker'' whose gregarious personality and taste for compromise made possible some of the Warren and Burger Courts' most famous activist decisions. But before his 1952 appointment to the New Jersey Supreme Court, there was little to suggest his liberal proclivities: A solid but not outstanding product of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law, Brennan had been the first Catholic partner at one of New Jersey's staid corporate law firms and had devoted his professional energies to promoting the interests of his corporate clients. Eisler sees Brennan's 1953 dissenting opinion in New Jersey v. Tune, in which he argued that a criminal defendant should have the right to see his written confession, as an important harbinger of his future philosophy. Nonetheless, Brennan's liberalism was still so obscure that when President Eisenhower appointed him to the US Supreme Court in 1956, the Chief Executive assumed that Brennan wouldn't ``entertain technical arguments about constitutionality.'' Eisler speculates that Brennan's liberalism was rooted in his Newark boyhood as the son of a poor Irish laborer who became a labor leader and political reformer. The author quickly reviews several of Brennan's great cases, such as Baker v. Carr (which established the ``one person- one vote'' rule for election district-drawing), and various privacy and obscenity cases (Brennan's most influential decision, New York Times v. Sullivan, which revolutionized the law of defamation, receives only a brief sketch). The author also illuminates Brennan's close relationships with his family and other justices. Although Eisler's analyses of specific cases can be disappointingly superficial, he paints a warm, vivid portrait of Brennan the man and admirably sums up the justice's humane and progressive jurisprudence. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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More About the Author
Kim Eisler grew up in Lynchburg, Va., and graduated from George Washington University in 1974 with a BA in Political Science. Working his way through college as a copyboy at Time Magazine, Kim was on desk duty on the day of the Watergate break-in in 1973. When he suggested a story on the burglary, the New York office replied "passing on Watergate-too local." Thus was the way cleared for Woodward and Bernstein to become legends. After college Kim became a staff writer at the Delta Democrat Times working for legendary Southern editor Hodding Carter III. After uncovering a massive scandal regarding the operations of the Greenville-Lake Village Bridge, Kim moved his investigative reporting niche to The Tampa Tribune, eventually becoming the state capital bureau chief in Tallahassee. After five years with the Tribune, Kim took a job at the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the nation's most prestigious daily paper for the legal profession. After just a year, he was scooped up the American Lawyer Magazine, run by Steven Brill, later to be the founder of Court TV. It was American Lawyer that Kim established his credentials as the leading law firm reporter in the United States and that expertise landed him a contract as the author of Shark Tank, the story of how the country's largest law firm, Finley Kumble, crumbled as the law firm version of a Ponzi Scheme. Shark Tank's success led to the publication of The Last Liberal, a biography of influential Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Kim's third book was Revenge of the Pequots, the tale of how Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut was put together and changed the landscape of gambling in America. After several years writing magazine articles, Kim's newest book Masters of the Game, the story of how Williams & Connolly law firm elected a president, freed an assassin and won a world series, is scheduled for publication on June 22 by Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Liberal Lion,
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This review is from: A Justice for All: William J. Brennan, Jr., and the Decisions That Transformed America (Hardcover)
Justice Brennan was nominated by President Eisenhower with an assumption that he would be a conservative and vote against Chief Justice Earl Warren. Brennan became one of a long line of justices to shock the president that appointed them by being farther to the left. That list includes Blackmun, Souter, Stevens, and Warren as well. Brennan's appointment happened very quickly with a minimum of checking on his background. He was a New Jersey Supreme Court judge who had come from a distinguished career in private practice, a stint in military intelligence during World War II, and from a civic minded family with a former city commissioner father. If you have read that last sentence, you probably know more about Brennan's background then Eisenhower did.
The book covers Brennan's early history but really takes off when he arrives on the court. The author does a good job linking Brennan's views to earlier events in his life and earlier decisions on the New Jersey court, demonstrating that he did not really change that much on core issues. Although firmly encamped in the court's liberal wing, Brennan preferred to operate quietly and make compromises to shape majority opinions rather than lonely dissents. He worked closely with Chief Justice Warren and was never fully comfortable with the two other chiefs he served with. Except on the death penalty and later years when other strong liberals were mostly absent from the court, Brennan was more of a back room operator than the public face of the liberal wing. Brennan's influence can be felt in issues still with us today. Some are mostly settled now and uncontroversial, for example most of the criminal procedure protections Brennan supported. Others remain hot button issues including affirmative action, choice, and the death penalty. Brennan was not always in the winning side on these cases, though he usually salvaged something. In the Bakke case on affirmative action, the specific program at issue was struck down but the decision established a framework that allowed other affirmative action programs to operate for the next thirty years. Beyond insights into Brennan, the book gives insights into how the court operated primarily in the Warren and Burger years. The conferences were passionate, the justices worked hard, and people could be persuaded. I hope the court still operates that way today, though I have my doubts. I read the 1993 edition of the book which was written before Brennan's death and has a minimum of retrospective material on Brennan's life and career by others besides the author. She did come out with a newer edition in 2003 that I would recommend instead. I am confident it only enhances this easy to read account of Brennan and the court he spent over thirty years on.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good biography,
By Peter (Melbourne Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Justice for All: William J. Brennan, Jr., and the Decisions That Transformed America (Hardcover)
I became interested in Justice Brennan after reading the brilliant book The Brethren by Bob Woodward. Brennan came across as the most interesting Justice in that book (although they all came off as people one would like to read about).
Eisler's book is good, gives a readable account of Brennan's life and accomplishments in and out of the court. I would like to have seen some more opinions on Brennan from other sources after his retirement but apart from that, a good account of a groundbreaking Justice.
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