Brennan’s Body Lies in State at Supreme Court

William J. Brennan’s body was carried in a flag-draped coffin Monday back to the Supreme Court building where, over a 34-year tenure, he became America’s most influential judge of the 20th century.

“This was his life. This was his way of touching our lives,” the Rev. Milton Jordan told Brennan’s family and former colleagues gathered in the Supreme Court building’s stately Great Hall.

The Supreme Court’s leading liberal from 1956 to his 1990 retirement, Brennan died last week at age 91.

He left a huge legal legacy. His opinions shaped the landmark “one-person, one-vote” principle of political reapportionment, expanded free-speech rights and broadened the rights of all people to battle the government in court.

President Clinton was to deliver one of the eulogies at a funeral service for Brennan at St. Matthew’s Cathedral today. But first, Brennan’s coffin was to remain on public view for 12 hours at the court building, resting on the same funeral bier used for President Lincoln in 1865.

He is history’s fifth Supreme Court member honored in this way. Chief Justices Salmon Chase, Earl Warren and Warren Burger and Justice Thurgood Marshall, one of Brennan’s closest friends, also had their coffins placed on display before burial.

Three of the court’s current members--John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas--were present Monday, as were retired Justices Byron R. White and Harry A. Blackmun.

Marshall’s widow, Cecilia, also attended the brief ceremony. Thomas served as her escort. With the court in summer recess, six of its current members were not in town.

About 100 people lined up in stifling heat to be among the first to pay their respects to the deceased justice.

“But for Brennan and others, I don’t know if I would have had the opportunities I have had in my life, as a black and a woman,” said Tiffany Graham, a paralegal. “He used the Constitution as a tool to effect social justice and social change, and for that I will be forever grateful.”

Louis Linden of Baltimore, first in line, said, “Justice Brennan and the things that he wrote pretty much define why I became a lawyer . . . the idea that the Constitution was primarily a document to protect people rather than property.”