7. William Brennan (1956).

wise, and he was deep, and he is underrated; it’s high time for a Frankfurter revival.

A piercing intellect and the greatest writer in the history of the court, Jackson did not go to lawschool. (No smirking, please.) Jackson helped to develop doctrines that govern contemporary understandings of free speech and separation of powers, above all the authority of the president.

No other justicewrote sentences like this: “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.” Or this: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribewhat shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess byword or act their faith therein.” Jackson made Supreme Court opinions sing.

Under Warren’s leadership, the court reformed American society. It struck down school segregation; called for a rule of one person, one vote; required the Miranda warnings; offered broad protection to freedom of speech; expanded the reach of the Fourth Amendment; and abolished the poll tax. That’s a very partial picture. Warren did not have the analytic power of others on this list, but none of them had a larger impact. Brennan may well have been the most influential member of theWarren court. IfWarren was its heart, Brennan was its brain. An unfailingly kind and gracious man, Brennan served on the court far longer thanWarren, and he somehow managed to cobble together rights-protecting majorities long after the liberal majority left the bench.