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One Area Of Law More Than Any Other Besmirches The Constitutional Vision Of Human Dignity. . . . The Barbaric Death Penalty Violates Our Constitution. Even The Most Vile Murderer Does Not Release The State From Its Obligation To Respect Dignity, For The State Does Not Honor The Victim By< Emulating His Murderer. Capital Punishment's Fatal Flaw Is That It Treats People As Objects To Be Toyed With And Discarded. . . . One Day The Court Will Outlaw The Death Penalty. Permanently.

-William J. Brennan

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One Area Of Law

William J. Brennan

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One Area Of Law More Than Any Other Besmirches The Constitutional Vision Of Human Dignity. . . . The Barbaric Death Penalty Violates Our Constitution. Even The Most Vile Murderer Does Not Release The State From Its Obligation To Respect Dignity, For The State Does Not Honor The Victim By< Emulating His Murderer. Capital Punishment's Fatal Flaw Is That It Treats People As Objects To Be Toyed With And Discarded. . . . One Day The Court Will Outlaw The Death Penalty. Permanently.

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Our Statute Books Gradually Became Laden With Gross, Stereotyped Distinctions Between The Sexes And, Indeed, Throughout Much Of The 19th Century The Position Of Women In Our Society Was, In Many Respects, Comparable To That Of Blacks Under The Pre-civil War Slave Codes.

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With Respect To The Death Penalty, I Believe That A Majority Of The Supreme Court Will One Day Accept That When The State Punishes With Death, It Denies The Humanity And Dignity Of The Victim And Transgresses The Prohibition Against Cruel And Unusual Punishment. That Day Will Be A Great Day For Our Country, For It Will Be A Great Day For Our Constitution.

If We Are To Be As A Shining City Upon A Hill, It Will Be Because Of Our Ceaseless Pursuit Of The Constitutional Ideal Of Human Dignity.

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.

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.

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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One Area Of Law More Than Any Other Besmirches The Constitutional Vision Of Human Dignity. . . . The Barbaric Death Penalty Violates Our Constitution. Even The Most Vile Murderer Does Not Release The State From Its Obligation To Respect Dignity, For The State Does Not Honor The Victim By< Emulating His Murderer. Capital Punishment's Fatal Flaw Is That It Treats People As Objects To Be Toyed With And Discarded. . . . One Day The Court Will Outlaw The Death Penalty. Permanently.

The Genius Of The Constitution Rests Not In Any Static Meaning It Might Have Had In A World That Is Dead And Gone, But In The Adaptability Of Its Great Principles To Cope With Current Problems And Current Needs.

We Current Justices Read The Constitution In The Only Way That We Can: As 20th-century Americans.

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.

Consequences Flow From A Justice's Interpretation In A Direct And Immediate Way. A Judicial Decision Respecting The Incompatibility Of Jim Crow With A Constitutional Guarantee Of Equality Is Not Simply A Contemplative Exercise In Defining The Shape Of A Just Society. It Is An Order

You In The Media Ought To Be Ashamed Of Yourselves To Call The Provisions And The Guarantees Of The Bill Of Rights 'technicalities'. They're Not. We Are What We Are Because Of Those Guarantees.

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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We Current Justices Read The Constitution In The Only Way That We Can: As Twentieth Century Americans. 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. For The Genius Of The Constitution Rests Not In Any Static Meaning It Might Have Had In A World That Is Dead And Gone, But In The Adaptability Of Its Great Principles To Cope With Current Problems And Current Needs.

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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.

It Is Tempting To Pretend That Minorities On Death Row Share A Fate In No Way Connected To Our Own, That Our Treatment Of Them Sounds No Echoes Beyond The Chambers In Which They Die. Such An Illusion Is Ultimately Corrosive, For The Reverberations Of Injustice Are Not So Easily Confined.

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Debate On Public Issues Should Be Uninhibited, Robust And Wide-open And That...may Well Include Vehement, Caustic, And Sometimes Unpleasantly Sharp Attacks On Government And Public Officials.

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