Brennan and State Constitutions

The former Great Gorge Playboy Resort in New Jersey seems an unlikely place to help form a jurisprudential movement toward reliance on state constitutions to protect civil rights and liberties. One need only turn back the clock to 1976 to find the story of one of the most significant moments in the rise of state constitutions. Anyone who is steeped in this movement is likely familiar with the lead article in the January 1977 issue of the Harvard Law Review, “State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights.” The author was U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr.