David Souter, the former Republican-appointed US Supreme Court justice who defied expectations by veering to the left, has died aged 85.
Souter, who served more than 19 years on America’s top court, on Thursday “died peacefully . . . at home” in New Hampshire, the Supreme Court said in a statement on Friday, without elaborating on the cause of death.
“He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. “After retiring to his beloved New Hampshire in 2009, he continued to render significant service to our branch by sitting regularly on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than a decade. He will be greatly missed.”
A Massachusetts native, Souter in 1990 was appointed to the top court by George HW Bush. Announcing his nomination, Bush described Souter as “a remarkable judge of keen intellect and the highest ability, one whose scholarly commitment to the law and whose wealth of experience mark him of first rank”.
Selected by Bush for his ability to win confirmation, Souter surprised many once on America’s most powerful bench, often siding with its more liberal wing in landmark cases.
In 1992, he joined moderate conservatives to co-write the opinion in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania vs Casey, which upheld Roe vs Wade, the 1973 decision that had enshrined the constitutional right to an abortion.
“Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt,” the justices wrote in 1992. “Yet 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages . . . that definition of liberty is still questioned.”
The Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe vs Wade in a dramatic decision that is still reverberating throughout American society.
Souter also voted against capital punishment when the Supreme Court in 2006 upheld the death penalty in the state of Kansas after a controversial murder conviction.
The former justice wrote in dissent: “A law that requires execution when the case for aggravation has failed to convince the sentencing jury is morally absurd, and the Court’s holding that the Constitution tolerates this moral irrationality defies decades of precedent aimed at eliminating freakish capital sentencing in the United States”.
Before joining the top court, Souter rose through the ranks of the legal profession, with roles including state attorney-general of New Hampshire, a member of the state’s supreme court and judge on the US appeals court for the first circuit.
He attended Harvard Law School, Oxford university and Harvard College.
