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Justice David Hackett Souter


Self Description

December 2005: "David Hackett Souter, Associate Justice, was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, September 17, 1939. He was graduated from Harvard College, from which he received his A.B. After two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, he received an A.B. in Jurisprudence from Oxford University and an M.A. in 1989. After receiving an LL.B. from Harvard Law School, he was an associate at Orr and Reno in Concord, New Hampshire from 1966 to 1968, when he became an Assistant Attorney General of New Hampshire. In 1971, he became Deputy Attorney General and in 1976, Attorney General of New Hampshire. In 1978, he was named an Associate Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire as an Associate Justice in 1983. He became a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on May 25, 1990. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat October 9, 1990."

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

Third-Party Descriptions

July 2009: "Justice David H. Souter, said the majority had adopted a crabbed view of plausibility and had in the process upended the civil litigation system."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/21.html

May 2009: "But the effect on presidential power could be pivotal. Important rulings on executive authority — striking down military commissions and upholding habeas corpus rights for Guantánamo detainees — have been decided by a five-vote majority, including Justice Souter, on the nine-member court."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/us/politics/25power.html

May 2009: "Justice David H. Souter, writing for himself and Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, said the accusations against the two officials in Mr. Iqbal’s lawsuit were specific enough to satisfy the requirements for bringing a suit."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19scotus.html

June 2008: "Justice David H. Souter, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed with Scalia's historical analysis but said prosecutors could introduce evidence that defendants had engaged in a pattern of domestic violence as a substitute for their intent, perhaps opening the door to a finding that the alleged abuser had forfeited his right to confront a missing witness."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062502614.html

June 2008: '“The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court. He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/washington/26scotuscnd.html

June 2008: 'The age-bias ruling, written by Justice David H. Souter, acknowledged that “there is no denying that putting employers to the work of persuading fact-finders that their choices are reasonable makes it harder and costlier to defend” age-bias accusations and that the ruling “will sometimes affect the way employers do business with their employees.” Nevertheless, Justice Souter wrote, the language of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 makes it clear that Congress wanted the burden to be on the employer.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/washington/20scotuscnd.html

May 2008: 'The majority opinion, penned by Justice David Souter, hinged on an interpretation of the “dormant” commerce clause, the implicit idea that the Constitution bars states from interfering with interstate commerce. That concept is recognized by the courts but not explicitly stated in the Constitution.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/business/20bizcourt.html

March 2008: 'On the one hand, there is some reason to think that homicide cases yield what Justice David H. Souter, dissenting in that same death penalty decision two years ago, called “an unusually high incidence of false conviction, probably owing to the combined difficulty of investigating without help from the victim, intense pressure to get convictions in homicide cases and the corresponding incentive for the guilty to frame the innocent.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/us/25bar.html

January 2008: "Breyer and Justice David H. Souter suggested sending the case back to the lower court for an examination of the three-drug protocol compared with alternatives, something that was not done when the case was decided."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010700618.html

January 2008: 'And Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justice David H. Souter, wrote that there was a distinction “between constitutionality and wise policy,” and that they did not necessarily disagree with the lower courts’ findings of “glaring deficiencies” in the present system, despite its embrace by state lawmakers.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/washington/16cnd-scotus.html

February 2007: "Also last term, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a separate opinion in a death-penalty case for the sole purpose of excoriating Justice David Souter—who had written in a dissent in a technical case about the Kansas capital-sentencing scheme—and made mention of exonerated innocents."

http://www.slate.com/id/2159373/

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Student/Trainee (past or present) Harvard University Organization Dec 21, 2005
Organization Executive (past or present) New Hampshire (State Government) Organization Dec 21, 2005
Student/Trainee (past or present) Oxford University/University of Oxford Organization Dec 21, 2005
Member of (past or present) US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Organization
Supervisor of (past or present) Michael S. Barr Esq., MPhil, Ph.D. Person Jul 24, 2009
Supervisor of (past or present) Prof. Catherine M. Sharkey Esq. Person Mar 11, 2008

Articles and Resources

62 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Jul 21, 2009 9/11 Case Could Bring Broad Shift on Civil Suits

QUOTE: For more than half a century, it has been clear that all a plaintiff had to do to start a lawsuit was to file what the rules call “a short and plain statement of the claim” in a document called a complaint. Having filed such a bare-bones complaint, plaintiffs were entitled to force defendants to open their files and submit to questioning under oath. This approach, particularly when coupled with the American requirement that each side pay its own lawyers no matter who wins, gave plaintiffs settlement leverage.

 New York Times
Jul 20, 2009 9/11 Case Could Bring Broad Shift on Civil Suits (Sidebar)

QUOTE: The [Supreme Court] Iqbal decision now requires plaintiffs to come forward with concrete facts at the outset, and it instructs lower court judges to dismiss lawsuits that strike them as implausible.“In my view,” Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg said, “the court’s majority messed up the federal rules” governing civil litigation.

 New York Times
Jun 29, 2009 Supreme Court Finds Bias Against White Firefighters

QUOTE: The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that white firefighters in New Haven were subjected to race discrimination when the city threw out a promotional examination on which they had done well and black firefighters poorly....The new standards announced by the court will make it much harder for employers to discard the results of hiring and promotion tests once they are administered, even if they have a disproportionately negative impact on members of a given racial group.

 New York Times
Jun 29, 2009 Justices Rule That States Can Press Bank Cases

QUOTE: The Supreme Court paved the way on Monday for states to enforce fair-lending laws and other consumer protection measures against the nation’s biggest banks, striking down a rule that limited such powers to federal banking regulators....The letters referred to “troubling” disparities that suggested black and Hispanic borrowers had been charged disproportionately higher interest rates on mortgages compared with those for whites.

 New York Times
May 24, 2009 New Justice Could Hold the Key to Presidential Power

QUOTE: “We’re losing one of the court’s strongest leaders on the side of limiting executive power to reasonable bounds. If the person who replaces Souter is different than him, the balance of power may shift.”

 New York Times
May 18, 2009 Justices Turn Back Ex-Detainee’s Suit

QUOTE: A Pakistani Muslim who was arrested after the Sept. 11 attacks may not sue John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for abuses he says he suffered in a Brooklyn detention center...failed to allege a plausible link between the officials’ conduct and the abuses he said he had suffered.

 New York Times
Nov 11, 2008 Supreme Court Argument Report: Jack the Ripper in His Armchair

QUOTE: The Supreme Court on Monday considered a case involving whether a defendant's failure to report for confinement after conviction constitutes a "violent crime" under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The justices weighed arguments concerning whether failure to report is an aggressive or a passive act...

 Law.com
Jun 26, 2008 Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights

QUOTE: Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far by making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.

 New York Times
Jun 26, 2008 High Court Rejects Controversial Campaign Finance Provision

QUOTE: The Supreme Court today narrowly overturned a controversial provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, ruling that it is unconstitutional to allow candidates to accept larger-than-normal contributions if their opponents use their own fortunes to finance election bids.

 Washington Post
Jun 26, 2008 Right to Face Accusers Is Affirmed in Unusual Case: Witness Was Murder Victim

QUOTE: The Supreme Court yesterday threw out the conviction of a man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend because the defendant could not challenge an incriminating account she gave the police weeks before her death. The 6 to 3 ruling drew howls from domestic violence opponents who said the decision could lead to perverse situations in which criminals would reap a legal "windfall" after killing their victims.

 Washington Post
Jun 25, 2008 Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty for Child Rape

QUOTE: The court overturned a ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court, which had held that child rape is unique in the harm it inflicts not just upon the victim but on society and that, short of first-degree murder, no crime is more deserving of the death penalty.

 New York Times
Jun 20, 2008 Supreme Court Eases Age Bias Suits for Workers

QUOTE: In a 7-to-1 ruling, the court ruled that it is up to the employer to show that action against a worker stems from “reasonable factors other than age.” The question in the case, one of three involving labor relations issued by the court on Thursday, was whether the burden rested on the employer or on an employee bringing a suit.

 New York Times
Jun 09, 2008 Justices Reject ‘Class of One’ Argument

QUOTE: Government employees who are singled out for arbitrary, irrational or even vindictive treatment by their supervisors will find no relief in the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, unless the mistreatment is due to discrimination on the basis of race, sex or another protected category.

 New York Times
May 19, 2008 Supreme Court Upholds Child Pornography Law

QUOTE: The [Supreme Court] ruling scathingly rejected contentions that the 2003 legislation was so broadly written that it could make it a crime to share or even describe depictions of children in explicit sexual situations, even if the depictions are inaccurate, the children do not really exist and the intention is innocent.

 New York Times
May 19, 2008 Court Upholds Tax Exemptions for Municipal Bonds

QUOTE: The outcome of the case was being closely watched by the municipal bond market, where the practice in question is commonplace. Nearly every state that has an income tax — 38 in all — chooses to exempt state bond interest from residents’ taxable income, while taxing the interest on other states’ bonds. All 49 other states supported Kentucky’s position that the practice is valid.

 New York Times
Apr 16, 2008 Supreme Court Upholds Use of Lethal Injection: Split Reasoning Opens Door to New Challenges

QUOTE: The Supreme Court today upheld the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection in Kentucky, rejecting claims that the procedure amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and clearing the way for a resumption of executions in states that were awaiting the court's decision.

 Washington Post
Mar 25, 2008 Consensus on Counting the Innocent: We Can’t (Sidebar)

QUOTE: What the debate demonstrates is that we know almost nothing about the number of innocent people in prison. That is because any effort to estimate it involves extrapolation from just two numbers, neither one satisfactory.

 New York Times
Jan 16, 2008 Justices Back New York Trial Judge System

QUOTE: Sweeping aside complaints that New York State chooses its trial judges through an antiquated, patronage-tainted system that favors party cronies and gives voters no real say, the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the state’s unique system.

 New York Times
Jan 07, 2008 Lethal-Injection Ruling May Have to Wait: Justices Question Whether Kentucky Case Is Enough to End Three-Drug Protocol

QUOTE: Several justices who support the death penalty clearly indicated during oral arguments that they believe the three-drug protocol used around the country passes the constitutional test. But even those sometimes critical of how capital punishment is carried out wondered if the case [brought by two death row inmates]...would be enough to decide whether lethal injection should be scrapped.

 Washington Post
Jun 29, 2007 High Court Overturns Century-Old Antitrust Rule: Manufacturers Gain Say on Retail Prices

QUOTE: The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday overturned a nearly century-old ruling that prohibited manufacturers from dictating the minimum prices retailers must charge for their goods, saying such agreements could spark competition rather than stifle it.

 Washington Post

62 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]