David Souter, the former US Supreme Court Justice whose unexpected liberal rulings confounded conservative expectations, died on Thursday at his home in New Hampshire. He was 85. His death was confirmed in a statement from the Supreme Court, which noted he passed peacefully. “Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. “He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. He will be greatly missed.” who was David Souter? Born on September 17, 1939, in Weare, New Hampshire, Souter was the only child of a banker and a homemaker. He graduated with honors from Harvard University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and later earned his law degree from Harvard. Before his Supreme Court appointment, he served as New Hampshire’s attorney general and spent 12 years on the state’s superior and supreme courts. He was briefly appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in 1990 before his elevation to the Supreme Court. Souter joined the Supreme Court in 1990 as a Republican appointee under President George H W Bush. At the time, little was known publicly about his views, earning him the label of a “stealth nominee.” Despite conservative assurances that he would be a reliable right-leaning vote, Souter became a dependable voice for liberal positions on issues ranging from abortion rights to campaign finance reform. He was instrumental in preserving abortion rights in the landmark 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade and introduced the “undue burden” standard for abortion regulations. The ruling was a major disappointment for conservatives hoping to overturn Roe. Souter also notably dissented in the controversial Bush v. Gore ruling that halted the Florida ballot recount and effectively handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, the son of the president who had appointed him. “There is no justification for denying the state the opportunity to try to count all disputed ballots now,” Souter wrote in his dissent. He retired in 2009 at age 69, shortly after President George W Bush left office. His departure allowed President Barack Obama to nominate Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic judge to serve on the court. In a tribute at the time of Souter’s retirement, Obama praised him as “fair-minded and independent,” adding, “He never sought to promote a political agenda… with integrity, equanimity and compassion—the hallmark of not just being a good judge, but of being a good person.” Souter’s judicial philosophy prioritized precedent and judicial restraint. In the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, Souter contributed to an opinion emphasizing that the justices must follow precedent and resist outside political pressures. To overturn the abortion ruling would undermine the court's legitimacy, Souter warned. Beyond the courtroom, Souter was known for his privacy and modest lifestyle. A bachelor who lived in a sparsely furnished apartment and drove a Volkswagen to work, he avoided interviews and eschewed the spotlight. He brought yogurt and an apple for lunch and once told Congress that cameras would film Supreme Court proceedings “over my dead body”, the Reuters reported. In a rare public speech before his retirement, Souter joked about the Court's annual term: “I undergo a sort of annual intellectual lobotomy,” he said, adding that he preferred reading books in the summer.
