WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice David Souter plans to retire, after more than 19 years on the court, once the current term ends in late June, NBC News reported Thursday night. A retirement by Souter, 69, would give President Barack Obama his first chance to nominate a justice and the next few months would bring Senate confirmation hearings. His departure, however, isn't likely to change the court's liberal-conservative composition, because his successor will almost certainly be moderate to liberal, NBC News correspondent Pete Williams reported.
At 69, Souter is not the oldest member of the court. He has indicated in the past that he wanted to leave Washington and return to his native New Hampshire. Souter's early signaling of his intention to step down is almost certainly a move to let the White House get prepared to nominate a replacement, Williams reported.
Other candidates for retirement
The other candidates for retirement are Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 76, and Stevens, 89, although neither has betrayed any intention of leaving. Ginsburg, who is undergoing chemotherapy following surgery for pancreatic cancer in February, said she wants to serve into her 80s.
Speculation about Souter's plans had begun to swirl this week because the eight other justices were known to have hired the four law clerks who will work with them in the Supreme Court term that begins in October. Souter had been the lone holdout, hiring no one.
In 1990, Republican President George H.W. Bush nominated Souter for the position of Supreme Court justice. Little was known of his positions on issues at the forefront of the news, such as abortion, and it was hoped by conservatives that his literal interpretations of the Constitution would work in their favor. However, Souter's interpretations of the Constitution were more liberal than the Republican Party had hoped.
According to Biography Resource Center Online, during the Casey v. Planned Parenthood case, Souter voted to uphold the Roe v. Wade decision governing a woman's right to an abortion and also voted to prohibit prayer at high school graduation ceremonies in Lee v. Weisman.
In defense of his abortion stance, Souter wrote that, as a nation, we have come to rely on the "availability of abortion" and to overturn Roe v.Wade would be "a surrender to political pressure ... so to overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to re-examine a watershed decision would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question."
Since that time he consistently voted on the more liberal sides of issues.
Yet as Souter biographer Tinsley Yarbrough noted, "he doesn't take extreme positions." Indeed, in June, Souter sided with Exxon Mobil Corp. and broke with his liberal colleagues in slashing the punitive damages the company owed Alaskan victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Souter is the court's 105th justice, only its sixth bachelor. He works seven days a week through most of the court's October-to-July terms, a pace that he says leaves time for little else. He told an audience this year that he undergoes "an annual intellectual lobotomy" each fall.
Souter attended Harvard University, graduating Phi Betta Kappa in 1961 with a major in philosophy. Before returning to Harvard to attend law school, Souter won a Rhodes Scholarship to Magdalen College at Oxford.
He became New Hampshire's attorney general in 1976 and became a state court judge two years later. By 1990, he was on the federal appeals court in Boston for only a few months when Bush picked him to replace Justice William Brennan on the Supreme Court
