A Granite Judge Coming Home

Justice David Souter will be driving back home to New Hampshire for good after spending 19 years on the Supreme Court. Souter was appointed by President Bush in 1990 who expected him to be a conservative leaning judge, but in fact saw him join the more liberal wing of the country’s highest court. Surprising for Bush, he would become one of the four who voted for Gore in Bush v. Gore and would have the Center for Reproductive Rights call him “a consistent supporter of abortion rights.”

Souter has long been known as being an “old soul” in Washington where he lived a spartanesque lifestyle, disliked airplanes, wrote with a fountain pen, held out against cell phones and emails, never married, and always preferred his cabin in Weare to the capitol.

Souter informed President Obama this week that this session ending in June will be his last, that he’ll leave his seat at a comparatively young age of 69. The President stated that he was looking to replace Souter with a justice that held “a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity.”

Souter’s leaving will not change the leaning of the court – that will have to wait. President Obama and his strong majority in the Senate is sure to fill his seat with a justice who, as Souter turned out to, will follow a more liberal-leaning legal philosophy.