David H. Souter

David H. Souter, born in 1939, American jurist, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1990 to 2009. Born in Melrose, Massachusetts, he studied for two years as a Rhodes scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, before returning to Harvard University to take his law degree. After two years in private practice in New Hampshire he entered public service, eventually becoming the state’s attorney general (1976-1978). Named to the state trial court in 1978, he was elevated to the state supreme court in 1983. He served for two months in 1990 as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. In July of that year, Souter was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to the Supreme Court and confirmed by the Senate in October.

Although nominated by a conservative Republican president, Souter soon established himself as a member of the Court’s liberal wing. He upheld Roe v. Wade and was a dissenter in Bush v. Gore, the 2000 Supreme Court decision that effectively gave the disputed presidential election of that year to Republican George W. Bush. Souter reportedly became disillusioned with life in Washington, D.C., and retired after the Court’s June term ended in 2009 to return to his home state of New Hampshire.