In Defense of Dissents
![handle is hein.journals/hastlj37 and id is 445 raw text is: In Defense of Dissents
By WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR.*
I am a little afraid that students may find boring the subject that I
have chosen for this lecture. But stick with me until I get finished. The
subject is, In Defense of Dissents. In all candor, I ought to confess
that one reason I chose that title is that the sixteen opinions I wrote some
twenty-seven years ago during my first term on the Court did not include
a single dissent. Of my fifty-six opinions last term, forty-two were dis-
sents. Under the circumstances, because the great Judge Tobriner also
had a view of dissents that was not much different from mine, I thought I
would try to tell you why I think they serve a very important purpose
indeed.
It is an enormous pleasure for me to be here today, honoring the life
and great works of Mathew Tobriner. Such were his accomplishments
that my good friend Judge Skelly Wright, who gave the inaugural Tobri-
ner Lecture here two years ago, began his lecture with a confession. He
said that he had not, until recently, fully appreciated the importance of
state courts and state judges. Skelly and I have been friends for a great
many years, and he knew that I had served on the Supreme Court of
New Jersey and thus had some ideas about the value of state judges.
Mathew Tobriner was, as Chief Justice Bird described him three
years ago in a moving tribute, an exceptional public servant and a great
legal scholar. A full appreciation of his years on the bench is not, of
course, what you who knew him so well expect from me today. But I
was struck by the fact that the universally laudatory assessments of him
are by no means limited to discussions of Justice Tobriner's many note-
worthy opinions for the California Supreme Court. The deservedly fa-
mous case, for example, of People v. Dorado1 foreshadowed Miranda v.
Arizona2 in our Court by holding that the right to counsel in a criminal
* Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States.
These remarks were delivered as the Third Annual Mathew 0. Tobriner Memorial Lec-
ture at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, on November 18, 1985. The
author wishes to thank the editors and staff of The Hastings Law Journal, who assisted with
the research for this lecture.
1. 62 Cal. 2d 338, 398 P.2d 361, 42 Cal. Rptr. 169 (1965).
2. 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
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In Defense of Dissents
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