When the first President Bush chose David Hackett Souter for the
Supreme Court in 1990, the slender New Englander with the shy
demeanor and ambiguous past was quickly dubbed a "stealth
candidate". Determined to avoid a repeat of the firestorm
surrounding President Reagan's nomination of the controversial
Robert Bork, Bush opted for Souter, who had, remarkably, produced
only one law review article in his legal career. Souter, an obscure
but well-respected New Hampshire conservative, seemed unlikely to
arouse the kind of passionate opposition that defined the Bork
confirmation process. And, indeed, Souter was accepted onto the
Court with little fuss. Today, fifteen years into his tenure,
Souter remains as enigmatic and unpredictable as ever, a mystery
even to avid Court watchers. Who is David Hackett Souter and what
will be his legacy on the Supreme Court? Sifting through Souter's
opinions, papers of the Justice's contemporaries and other relevant
records and interviews, esteemed Supreme Court biographer Tinsley
Yarbrough here gives us the real David Souter, crafting a
fascinating account of one of the heretofore most elusive Justices
in the history of the Court. Though Souter's record on legal issues
was generally conservative before his arrival on the Court, his
mixed views caused some concern among both the left and the right
during the appointment process. His reclusive lifestyle and
frugality added to his mystique, making him even more difficult to
peg. His penchant for solitude and his seemingly narrow circle of
close friends convinced some that the middle-aged bachelor was out
of touch with the sort of "real world" problems the nation's
highest court regularly confronts. Court watchers soon realized-to
their delight or dismay-that President Bush's "stealth" justice was
a traditional New England Republican deeply tied to the party's
historic roots in the union and civil rights-in stark contrast to
most Reagan-Bush I appointees. On the bench, Souter has embraced a
flexible, evolving, and highly pragmatic judicial style that
embraces a high regard for precedent-even liberal decisions of the
Warren and Burger Courts with which he may have personally
disagreed. Even more significantly, Souter has become a regular and
very effective critic of the set of rulings via which his
ostensible political brethren-Chief Justice William Rehnquist,
Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas-have abandoned precedent to
assert their conservative vision. Ultimately, Yarbrough contends,
Souter has become the principal Rehnquist Court opponent of the
originalist, text-bound jurisprudence that many of the more
conservative Justices profess to champion.
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