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Welcome Message from the President
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The Die is Cast
The decision made in a Newark, Ohio motel room took on a life of its own when I returned to Michigan. People had to be told. The members of the board of directors. Our children. My colleagues on the court. The governor. All of these bases had to be touched before any public announcement of my resignation from the supreme court of Michigan was to be made.
Once I started talking to friends and fellow justices, however, the cat was out of the bag. I soon found myself inundated with phone calls from news media people looking for confirmation of the rumor that I was leaving the court.
The most persistent of the reporters was an old favorite of mine, Roger Lane, head of the Detroit Free Press Lansing bureau. He must have called me half a dozen times, cajoling me to comment on one rumor or another. I gave him a consistent ‘No Comment.’ Still, Roger was adept at reading between the lines.
On Wednesday August 29, 1973, my secretary, Marianne Farhat arranged for a press conference for Thursday at noon. I knew it was late for the morning Free Press deadline, but frankly, I didn’t feel I owed the Freep a lot of consideration.
On Thursday I was awakened by a phone call alerting me to the lead story in the Free Press. It began with the words, “Justice Thomas E. Brennan, embroiled in a conflict of interest controversy, is resigning from the Michigan Supreme Court, effective December 31...” There were two other references to conflict of interest in the story, which went on to mention that I was unavailable for comment and reportedly playing golf on Wednesday.
Despite that rather negative eye-opener, I was in a euphoric mood. I was sure that I had made the right decision. At the press conference, I was surrounded by my wife and children — all except John, the Ohio bound seminarian. I began by introducing my family and quipping that nepotism is better than having unemployed relatives. Then I read my letter to Governor Milliken. In it, after announcing my resignation, I said,
"Being grateful to the people of Michigan for the confidence they have reposed in me, I feel compelled to detail the reasons for my decision.
"As you know, I have been instrumental in the organization and establishment of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School here in Lansing.
"It is the first new law school in Michigan in half a century. Over 200 qualified young men and women are now enrolled. They have invested their time and their resources to realize dreams of legal education and admission to the Bar.
"I feel a deep sense of responsibility to these students, and to thousands more like them who share similar dreams. They are the hope of the future for all of us. They will be the post-war, post-Watergate leaders of our state and our nation. We would deny them the benefit of our experience and the wealth of our heritage at our peril.”
There were still some questions hurled at me about conflict of interest and nebulous charges of judicial impropriety. I was in no mood to be defensive. I told the media folks that around our house we thought that a conflict of interest was better than no interest at all. I wrapped up the session by suggesting that I might someday write a book, exposing all the inner secrets of the supreme court. I said it would be entitled “I Was a Teen Age Chief Justice.”
As the news conference broke up, Roger Lane sidled up and handed me an envelope. He said it was just for my personal information. I took my family and my colleague John Swainson to lunch at Walnut Hills Country Club afterward. There, I had a chance to open Roger’s envelope. Typewritten on his inimitable, old, worn down Underwood, it was Roger’s byline story from the morning edition. Nowhere was the phrase “conflict of interest” mentioned.
An interesting sideline. Roger Lane later enrolled at Cooley Law School. He was in his sixties, and I believe the oldest person to graduate from the school. He subsequently was employed as a public relations officer for the supreme court, and served with distinction as a member of the board of directors of the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society.
I left the court with the warmest of good feelings. Thomas M. Kavanagh, the chief justice I had opposed in the election of 1966,and helped to depose in 1967, was back in the center chair. He hosted a wonderfully convivial dinner party for the members of the court and their spouses in my honor.
In a brief ceremony after the call of cases in December, I came down from the bench, handed my robe to my secretary, and made a short parting statement to the court. I quoted Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America as he took leave of the United States Senate in 1861. It was a gracious speech in which he forgave any offense that might have been done to him and asked forgiveness of his colleagues for any hurt he may have caused them.
When I finished, Soapy Williams asked me if I was resigning or seceding. I replied that I hoped my new venture would be more successful than Mr. Davis’.
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This Page was last updated on:
08/19/2004