David Souter: Hero of the Supreme Court

 

David Souter’s recent announcement of his impending retirement has drawn both ahs of admiration and huhs of disbelief, as well as some snide remarks from the conservatives on Capitol Hill. His stated reasoning for preferring to live in his home state rather than in Washington, DC, has drawn more than a few snickers from those who think power and position are the only ideals worth striving for. Justice Souter, though, has shown us all a higher way. David Souter, by personal example, has placed public service against his own self interest.

 

David Hackett Souter was born 17 September, 1939 in Melrose Massachusetts. He spent much of his childhood in New Hampshire. He attended Harvard from where he graduated magna cum laude. He was then selected as a Rhodes scholar and received his Master’s From Magdalen College, Oxford. Justice Souter then returned to Harvard, this time entering Harvard Law, from which he graduated in 1966.

 

Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, David Souter served as Assistant Attorney General of New Hampshire from 1968. He then succeeded to Attorney General in 1976. He was appointed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1983. In 1990, he was appointed to a judgeship on the First Circuit US Court of Appeals, and was nominated by President George H. W. Bush for the Supreme Court of the United States just two months later.

 

Souter’s appointment was opposed by just nine Senators, including both Sens. Kennedy and Kerry of Massachusetts. Also weighing in against his nomination and confirmation were the National Organization for Women and the NAACP. This opposition was grounded in the idea that David Souter would prove an extreme right-wing Conservative addition to the Supreme Court. He quickly dispelled that notion, advancing, after being sworn in, the idea that Court rulings always have a human affect that must be considered in deliberations. Initially, it seemed, in the first few years, that Justice Souter would vote on the conservative side of issues. He then went on to prove in later years to be a left leaning centrist. Supreme Court Justice David Souter disproved his supporters and detractors both, standing not as a strict constructionist in the mold of Hugo Black, but far more progressive.

 

 

When the Supreme Court in 2000 sided with George W. Bush over the disputed Florida ballot results, Souter was ready to retire in protest and disgust. But the gravity of the situation prevented him from doing so. Justice Souter realized that his retirement would give the new President, against whom he had dissented with the Court’s Bush v. Gore ruling, the power to appoint Justice Souter’s replacement. He had long wanted to retire to his home, and to leave, DC, a place he loathed for many reasons. But he placed what he believed to be the public’s interest ahead of his own. Justice Souter’s action prevented the second Bush administration from placing another conservative ideologue upon the bench, and thus prevented the Court’s ideology to shift dangerously rightward for a generation. Now, with a Democrat in the White House with much popular support, Justice Souter sees the opportunity to serve his country and himself at the same time. He can retire has he has long wished to do and provide the current administration another opportunity to make an appointment that will last another generation. Godspeed Justice Souter.