Brennan, William J(oseph), Jr (1906–1997)

US judge and associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1956–90. A liberal, he wrote many important Supreme Court majority decisions that assured the freedoms set forth in the First Amendment and established the rights of minority groups. He was especially noted for writing the majority opinion in Baker v. Carr of 1962, in which state voting reapportionment ensured ‘one person, one vote’, and in US v. Eichman of 1990, which ruled that the law banning desecration of the flag was a violation of the right to free speech as provided for in the First Amendment.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Brennan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School. He was a New Jersey superior court 1949–52 and supreme court 1952–56 judge. A Democrat himself, Brennan was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Eisenhower, a Republican. Considered a liberal, his vote was usually cast with the majority during the years of the Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, but he became a key liberal influence when the court majority, under chief justices Burger and Rehnquist, shifted to the conservative side in the 1980s. He retired from the Court in 1990, citing health reasons, and died in 1997 in Arlington, Virginia.