Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 24, 1990 TAG: 9007240500
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: LINDA GREENHOUSE THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
"We don't discuss politics because he doesn't know about politics," said Sen. Warren Rudman, the New Hampshire Republican who is Souter's principal champion and sponsor.
In all these ways, the 50-year-old federal judge who stood next to Bush at a White House news conference on Monday afternoon could scarcely have been more different from Robert Bork, the outspoken nominee whom President Ronald Reagan introduced to the country under similar circumstances three years ago.
Souter's published opinions from his seven years on the New Hampshire Supreme Court mainly concern interpretations of state law, topics like negligence, family law, and criminal procedure. Confirmed by the Senate only two months ago to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, in Boston, Souter had barely moved into his chambers and had not participated in any of the court's cases.
The Senate and members of interest groups at both ends of the political spectrum will spend the next few weeks trying to fill in some of the blanks. But it is clear that the nominee has won the respect of Republicans and Democrats alike.
Rudman said his friend and protege, a former Rhodes scholar, "is the single most brilliant intellectual mind I have ever met."
Rudman was attorney general of New Hampshire from 1970 to 1976. Souter, who joined the attorney general's office in 1968, was his assistant and later his deputy.
Introduced by Bush on Monday as a judge who "will interpret the Constitution and not legislate from the federal bench," Souter declined to answer questions.
David Hackett Souter was born on Sept. 17, 1939, in Melrose, Mass. He now lives in Weare, N.H., in a farmhouse he valued on a recent financial disclosure form at $150,000. He placed his net worth at $621,000 as of last Dec. 31. He has never been married.
He graduated from Harvard College in 1961 and spent two years at Magdelen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He entered Harvard Law School when he returned to the United States and received his law degree in 1966.
He spent only two years in private law practice, at the Concord, N.H., firm of Orr and Reno. He served three years as an assistant and five years as deputy attorney general. He became attorney general, an appointive office in New Hampshire, in 1976.
He became a judge on the state trial court in 1978. Five years later, Gov. John Sununu, now Bush's chief of staff, accepted Rudman's recommendation and named him to the state Supreme Court.
Souter was described by Joseph Grandmaison, the former New Hampshire Democratic leader, as "about 135 pounds - and about 120 pounds of brain."
Thomas Rath, a Republican and former state attorney general who was Souter's deputy, said his old boss likes to work seven days a week, taking time out for classical music and hikes in the outdoors that he loves.
The nominee is a Republican, an Episcopalian, and a man who never served in the military.
Souter evidently has an interest in medicine. He served for 14 years as a trustee and for six years as president of Concord Hospital in Concord, N.H.
Souter also served from 1981 to 1987 as an overseer of the Dartmouth Medical School. In addition, he has been a trustee and vice president of the New Hampshire Historical Society.
Two of Souter's opinions as an associate justice on the New Hampshire Supreme Court attracted some attention on Monday.
One was a medical malpractice case the court decided in 1986, permitting a lawsuit against an obstetrician by a woman who contracted measles during her pregnancy and gave birth to a baby with severe defects. The woman argued that her doctor was negligent in failing to warn her of the possibility of birth defects so that she could have undergone prenatal testing in time to terminate the pregnancy.
Souter concurred in the majority opinion by Justice William Batchelder, who noted that while abortion "involves controversial and divisive social issues," the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the constitutional right to abortion.
Souter also wrote a separate concurring opinion, noting that the majority opinion had failed to raise "a significant issue." He said: "The trial court did not ask whether, or how, a physician with conscientious scruples against abortion, and the testing and counseling that may inform an abortion decision, can discharge his professional obligation without engaging in procedures that his religious or moral principles condemn."
"To say nothing about this issue could lead to misunderstanding," Souter said. He noted that doctors in such a position might be able to discharge their duty to their patients by referring them for testing and counseling to another doctor.
The court's majority responded that it had not addressed the question Souter raised "because it has not been raised, briefed, or argued in the record before us."
The second case that drew comment on Monday concerned a rape prosecution. Two years ago, Souter wrote an opinion for a unanimous court overturning a rape conviction on the ground that the trial judge had erroneously excluded evidence about the victim's "sexually provocative" behavior. The defendant had testified that the victim had left a bar with him voluntarily and had consented to sexual intercourse.
Souter's opinion said that the state's rape shield law, intended to prevent victims from being put on trial, had to be interpreted in light of a defendant's right to a fair trial. He said: "There comes a point at which the testimony which is, on its face, excludable under the rape shield law becomes so relevant and so important to the issue of guilt or innocence that the statute has to yield to constitutional interests."
by CNB