Age, Biography, and Wiki
David Souter was born on September 17, 1939, in Melrose, Massachusetts. He passed away on May 8, 2025, at the age of 85. Souter's life was marked by significant contributions to the legal system, including his tenure on the Supreme Court and various roles in New Hampshire's legal system.
| Occupation | Republicans |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 17 September 1939 |
| Age | 85 Years |
| Birth Place | Melrose, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Virgo |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 8 May, 2025 |
| Died Place | Hopkinton, New Hampshire, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Detailed information about David Souter's height, weight, and body measurements is not readily available in public sources.
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
David Souter remained an ascetic bachelor throughout his life, focusing on his career rather than personal relationships.
In the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Souter voted with the moderate wing in a majority decision in which the Court reaffirmed the essential holding in Roe v. Wade but narrowed its scope. Justice Anthony Kennedy had considered overturning Roe and upholding all the restrictions at issue in Casey. Souter considered upholding all the restrictions but was uneasy about overturning Roe. After consulting with O'Connor, the three (who came to be known as "the troika") developed a joint opinion that upheld all the restrictions in Casey except the mandatory notification of a husband while asserting the essential holding of Roe, that the Constitution protects the right to an abortion.
Souter worked well with Sandra Day O'Connor and had a good relationship with both her and her husband during her days on the court. He generally had a good working relationship with every justice, but was particularly fond of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and considered John Paul Stevens to be the "smartest" justice.
| Parents | |
| Husband | |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
While specific figures for David Souter's net worth are not widely reported, as a Supreme Court Justice, he earned a substantial salary. The annual salary for Supreme Court Justices is around $260,000 to $270,000[Note: This figure may vary by year and source]. Additionally, justices often receive compensation for speaking engagements, book deals, and other activities post-retirement. However, Souter's simple lifestyle and lack of business ventures suggest that his net worth may not be as high as that of some other public figures.
Career, Business, and Investments
Souter's career was distinguished by his public service, including roles as a prosecutor, attorney general, and associate justice on the New Hampshire Supreme Court. He was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Post-retirement, Souter continued to contribute to the legal community by serving as a visiting judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
In 1968, after two years as an associate at the law firm of Orr & Reno in Concord, New Hampshire, Souter began his career in public service by accepting a position as an assistant attorney general of New Hampshire. In 1971, Warren Rudman, then the attorney general of New Hampshire, selected Souter as deputy attorney general. Souter succeeded Rudman as New Hampshire attorney general in 1976.
Souter served as the Court's designated representative to Congress on at least one occasion, testifying before committees about the Court's needs for additional funding to refurbish its building and for other projects.
Even though Souter had never traveled outside the United States during his years with the Supreme Court, he still gained significant recognition abroad. In 1995, a series of articles based on his written opinions and titled "Souter Court" was published by a Moscow legal journal, The Russian Justice. Those were followed by a book, written in Russian and bearing Souter's name in the title. Justice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation Yury Danilov, reviewing the 2nd edition of the book in a Moscow English-language daily, made the following remark on Souter's position in Bush v. Gore: "In a most critical and delicate situation, David Souter had maintained the independence of his position and in this respect had become a symbol of the independence of the judiciary."
Former Supreme Court correspondent Linda Greenhouse wrote of Souter that "to focus on his eccentricities—his daily lunch of yogurt and an apple, core and all; the absence of a computer in his personal office—is to miss the essence of a man who in fact is perfectly suited to his job, just not to its trappings. His polite but persistent questioning of lawyers who appear before the court displays his meticulous preparation and his mastery of the case at hand and the cases relevant to it. Far from being out of touch with the modern world, he has simply refused to surrender to it control over aspects of his own life that give him deep contentment: hiking, sailing, time with old friends, reading history."
Social Network
David Souter was not known to be active on social media platforms, preferring a private life.
A Wall Street Journal opinion piece ten years after Souter's nomination called Souter a "liberal jurist" and said that Rudman took "pride in recounting how he sold Mr. Souter to gullible White House Chief of Staff John Sununu as a confirmable conservative. Then they both sold the judge to President Bush, who wanted above all else to avoid a confirmation battle." Rudman wrote in his memoir that he had "suspected all along" that Souter would not "overturn activist liberal precedents." Sununu later said that he had "a lot of disappointment" in Souter's positions on the Court and would have preferred him to be more like Antonin Scalia. In contrast, President Bush said several years after Souter's appointment that he was proud of Souter's "outstanding" service and "outstanding intellect" and that Souter would "serve for years on the Court, and he will serve with honor always and with brilliance".
Souter maintained a low public profile after retiring from the Supreme Court. In one exception, comments he made during a 2012 appearance at the Capitol Center for the Arts in New Hampshire about the dangers of "civic ignorance" were, in 2016, called "remarkably prescient" of the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
Once named by The Washington Post as one of Washington's 10 Most Eligible Bachelors, Souter never married, though he was once engaged. He was an Episcopalian.
In early August 2009, Souter moved from his family farmhouse in Weare to a Cape Cod-style single-story house in nearby Hopkinton, New Hampshire, a town in Merrimack County northeast of Weare and immediately west of the state capital of Concord. Souter told a disappointed Weare neighbor that the two-story family farmhouse was not structurally sound enough to support the thousands of books he owned and that he wished to live on one level.
Education
Souter graduated from Harvard College in 1961 and was a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford. He later earned his law degree from Harvard Law School.
In summary, David Souter's life was marked by his dedication to public service and his contributions to the legal system. His net worth, while not extensively detailed, reflects a life of modest living and a focus on his career as a jurist.
Raised in New England, Souter attended Harvard College; Magdalen College, Oxford; and Harvard Law School. After briefly working in private practice, he moved to public service. He served as a prosecutor in the office of the Attorney General of New Hampshire (1968–1976); as attorney general of New Hampshire (1976–1978); as an associate justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court (1978–1983); as an associate justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court (1983–1990); and as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1990).
Souter graduated second in his class from Concord High School in 1957. He then attended Harvard University, graduating in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in philosophy and writing a senior thesis on the legal positivism of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. While at Harvard, Souter was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (later promoted to a Master of Arts degree, as per tradition) in Jurisprudence from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1963. He graduated in 1966 with a Bachelor of Laws degree from Harvard Law School.
After the appointment of Clarence Thomas, Souter moved toward the ideological middle. In the 1992 case Lee v. Weisman, Souter voted with the liberal wing and against allowing prayer at a high school graduation ceremony.
In the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court upheld the right to abortion as established by the "essential holding" of Roe v. Wade (1973) and issued as its "key judgment" the imposition of the undue burden standard when evaluating state-imposed restrictions on that right. The controlling plurality decision in the case was joined by Souter, Kennedy and O'Connor. Souter is widely believed to have written the section of the opinion that addresses the issue of stare decisis and set out a four-part test in determining whether to overrule a prior decision. David Garrow later called that section "the most eloquent section of the opinion" and said it includes "two paragraphs that rank among the most memorable lines ever authored by an American jurist".
* Abraham, Henry J., Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
* Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ISBN 978-0-19-505835-2.
