[Infowarrior] - Justice Souter To Retire

[Richard Forno]

Supreme Court Justice Souter To Retire

by Nina Totenberg

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103694193

NPR.org, April 30, 2009 · NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice  
David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term.

The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a  
member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction.

At 69, Souter is nowhere near the oldest member of the court. In fact,  
he is in the younger half of the court's age range, with five justices  
older and just three younger. So far as anyone knows, he is in good  
health. But he has made clear to friends for some time that he wanted  
to leave Washington, a city he has never liked, and return to his  
native New Hampshire. Now, according to reliable sources, he has  
decided to take the plunge and has informed the White House of his  
decision.

Factors in his decision no doubt include the election of President  
Obama, who would be more likely to appoint a successor attuned to the  
principles Souter has followed as a moderate-to-liberal member of the  
court's more liberal bloc over the past two decades.

In addition, Souter was apparently satisfied that neither the court's  
oldest member, 89-year-old John Paul Stevens, nor its lone woman, Ruth  
Bader Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery over the winter, wanted to  
retire at the end of this term. Not wanting to cause a second vacancy,  
Souter apparently had waited to learn his colleagues' plans before  
deciding his own.

Given his first appointment to the high court, most observers expect  
Obama will appoint a woman, since the court currently has only one  
female justice and Obama was elected with strong support from women.  
But an Obama pick would be unlikely to change the ideological makeup  
of the court.

Souter was a Republican appointed by President George H.W. Bush in  
1990, largely on the recommendation of New Hampshire's former Gov.  
John Sununu, who had become the first President Bush's chief of staff.

But Souter surprised Bush and other Republicans by joining the court's  
more liberal wing.

He generally votes with Stevens and the two justices who were  
appointed by President Bill Clinton — making up the bloc of four more  
liberal members of the court, a group that has usually been in the  
minority throughout Souter's tenure.

Possible nominees who have been mentioned as being on a theoretical  
short list include Elena Kagan, the current solicitor general who  
represents the government before the Supreme Court; Sonia Sotomayor, a  
Hispanic judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit;  
and Diane Wood, a federal judge in Chicago who taught at the  
University of Chicago at the same time future President Barack Obama  
was teaching constitutional law there.

President Obama's choice has an excellent chance of being confirmed by  
the U.S. Senate, where Democrats now have an advantage of 59 seats to  
the Republicans' 40.

By the time a vote on a successor is taken, the Senate is anticipated  
to have a 60th Democrat, as the Minnesota Supreme Court is expected to  
approve the recount that elected Democrat Al Franken over incumbent  
Republican Norm Coleman in that state.