On a national level, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan was known as “the Great Dissenter” in the history of jurisprudence. Justice Harlan was so designated, in part, given that he was the lone justice to dissent the 1896 decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious and damaging decisions. In arguing against his colleagues’ upholding of the constitutionality of segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal,” Justice Harlan delivered what would become one of the greatest and most cited dissents in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

On a more local level, Justice David N. Wecht, of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, through a series of pointed and cogent dissenting opinions in which he parted ways from the majority, has established his mark as Pennsylvania’s Great Dissenter. In a number of notable dissenting opinions over the past few years. Wecht has established his allegiance to settled legal precedent and the rule of law and has exhibited his excellent legal analytical skills and writing ability.

Railing Against a Majority ‘Eager’ to Change the Law