Retired Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, a New Hampshire Republican who sided with liberals during his 20 years on the bench, has died. He was 85 years old. Souter passed away on Thursday at his home, the court said in a statement.
Souter was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1990. He famously dissented from the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, which effectively handed the presidency to George W. Bush. The 85-year-old also took liberal stands on abortion and church-state relations. He retired from the court in June 2009, giving President Barack Obama his first Supreme Court vacancy to fill.
Justice David Souter was unmarried and was named in the Washington Post’s Washington’s “10 Most Eligible Bachelors” list. This was shortly after his nomination to the top court. The Post highlighted his appeal not for conventional charm but for the power and prestige of his new role, noting, “His position will make him handsome to a lot of people,” as quoted by Washington hostess Buffy Cafritz.
Despite early rumors about his sexual orientation, reports of three former girlfriends clarified that Souter was likely a “scholarly workaholic” too busy for romance, with one ex-girlfriend, Ellanor Stengel Fink, describing him as “very funny” and fond of Robert Frost.
“What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough … some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’ That is how the Roman republic fell,” Souter said in a 2012 interview.
Before serving as a New Hampshire judge, Souter was his state’s attorney general for two years. He worked on the attorney general’s staff for the previous eight years, after a brief stint in private practice.
Souter earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University, and a master’s degree from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, Washington, D.C.
