As Scalia noted, the athletes regularly stand naked in the showers with each other, so it is hard to understand how they can claim strong expectations of "privacy." Here, too, he has been every inch Brennan's successor. Such cases, in fact, generate a continual stream of appeals to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and Souter's rulings in this area gave him a reputation for being hardnosed. By Logan Scisco.
When Senate Democrats questioned him on such actions, Souter passed them all off as the dutiful actions of a political subordinate, defending his "client," the governor.Aides and advisers who participated in the selection of Souter in the Bush White House express disappointment and dismay -- with varying degrees of bitterness-at Souter's performance. Why has Souter turned out so differently than his sponsors expected?Souter had been considered for an appointment to the First Circuit back in the Reagan administration and much impressed some Justice Department conservatives at the time.
President George H.W. One of Gray's aides recalls, "We may have erred by emphasizing judicial philosophy more than evidence of Souter's stands on concrete issues. For example, as McGinnis notes, Souter took pains to defend racial gerrymandering and racial set- asides in cases this past term not by offering some larger defense of racial balancing as the path to racial harmony, but by discussing the relevant precedents and simply offering a different interpretation from the majority.But this explanation also fails, in the end, to account for Souter's performance.
Judge Souter's understanding, in He also endorsed the use of a "pen register," providing information on phone calls placed by criminal suspects, without use of a search warrant.
Souter also worried about permitting the Ku Klux Klan to set up a cross on a public square, since the permit for the Klan might seem to send a "message" of "public endorsement" -- of Christianity!In a case dealing with the operator of a laboratory making illegal drugs, Souter again displayed a remarkable solicitude for the accused, and in a way that is hard to square with the general stance he adopted on the state supreme court in New Hampshire. .
The striking fact, however, is that, within the White House, there was no strong opposition to Sourer.
There were rumors at the time of his confirmation that he was gay. He has reportedly wanted to resign since the 2000 election, but apparently delayed his retirement. Teddy Kennedy, one of nine Democrats to vote against Souter’s confirmation, rails against Souter. In New Hampshire, Souter had voted " to uphold a state "sobriety check point" imposed at random on passing motorists. Those who have served as clerks to other justices report that Souter's aides are among the most consistent leftists now working at the court. Souter …
The two have so much mutual trust that Souter routinely borrows the clerk Brennan himself recruits each year to help him in his work as a retired justice.
. he will affirm the conviction. A Justice Department official who researched Souter's decisions on the New Hampshire Supreme Court disgustedly characterizes the bulk of them as "cow law. This refers to the nomination and confirmation of Justice David Souter by President George H.W. For even where he had much prior experience with issues before the court, Souter has still moved notably to the left. These were not Bushies -- two of Gray's deputies helped found the Federalist Society, the network of philosophically conservative law students and lawyers.
David Souter, stealth candidate -- that was the soundbite in the summer of 1990, when President Bush announced the unknown New Hampshire judge's surprise nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Other conservative groups with wider agendas relied on assurances from the Bush White House -- "Souter," said chief of staff John Sununu, "will be a home run for conservatives" -- and were persuaded to issue statements of support for Souter.One camp believes Souter remains captive to the sort of jurisprudence that goes on in state courts like the one in New Hampshire for which he toiled. Mincing no words, one White House aide in the Bush administration puts the point quite directly: "The guy lied; he just snowed everybody to get his appointment.
Yet Souter managed to avoid saying anything in public that gave any hint about his own views on any contested issue of public concern.
Gray himself, impressed by a personal encounter with Souter, went along. Kennedy and O'Connor voted this year to demand "strict scrutiny" of federal affirmative action programs involving explicit racial preferences; Souter again dissented.The lesson is that a conservative who can be easily confirmed is probably not worth having on the court. Souter has been a liberal vote on the court, progressively moving in that direction since arriving to the Court in 1990. David Hackett Souter was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1990 until 2009.