But Justice Brown has questioned the validity of the so-called incorporation doctrine, under which the essential elements of the Bill of Rights apply to the states.
The incorporation doctrine is nowadays as well settled as any judicial principle and is a cornerstone of modern judicial decision making.
She fully accepted that the Supreme Court had upheld the incorporation doctrine, she said.
Under the incorporation doctrine, most provisions of the Bill of Rights now also apply to the state and local governments.
Indeed, if it could be limited by the incorporation doctrine, there would be no question as to whether some core right of privacy was cognizable under those two amendments.
This was the beginning of what is now known as the "selective incorporation" doctrine.
And I have affirmed my full acceptance of the incorporation doctrine and there are many other areas in which that is true.
Eventually, the incorporation doctrine, by which all the restrictions imposed on Congress by the Constitution are imposed, through the Fourteenth Amendment, on the states, must be overturned.
Last week he stated his "full acceptance of the incorporation doctrine."
This case, which introduced the incorporation doctrine, helped pave the way for many of the Warren Court's decisions expanding civil rights and civil liberties in the 1950s and 1960s.