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Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.

William J. Brennan

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William J. Brennan
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Clerks get into the damnedest wrangles--which is the way they help me.
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There is no such thing as a false idea.
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The public schools are supported entirely, in most communities, by public funds-funds exacted not only from parents, nor alone from those who hold particular religious views, nor indeed from those who subscribe to any creed at all.
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The calculated killing of a human being by the state involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person's humanity. The most vile murder does not, in my view, release the state from constitutional restraint on the destruction of human dignity.
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Whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.
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The law is not an end in itself, nor does it provide ends. It is preeminently a means to serve what we think is right.
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The quest for freedom, dignity, and the rights of man will never end.
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Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth whether administered by judges, juries, or administrative officials and especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the speaker.
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The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold views abhorrent to the authorities.
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We look to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time.
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We cannot let colorblindness become myopia which masks the reality that many created equal have been treated within our lifetimes as inferior both by the law and by their fellow citizens.
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The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power, and preventing the arbitrary administration of punishment is a basic ideal of any society that purports to be governed by the rule of law.
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Law cannot stand aside from the social changes around it.
William J. Brennan
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We hold that the Constitution does not forbid the states minor intrusions into an individual's body under stringently limited conditions.
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Religious conflict can be the bloodiest and cruelest conflicts that turn people into fanatics.
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Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.
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We must meet the challenge rather than wish it were not before us.
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If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity and the air of freedom which is our proudest heritage.
William J. Brennan
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At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of the individual is the supreme value can, without a fundamental inconsistency, follow the practice of deliberately putting one of its members to death.
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The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
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