Legal News

What?s in Souter?s Future? Civics, for Starters

By Ashby Jones

WSJ Supreme Court reporter Jess Bravin this afternoon filed this dispatch with the Law Blog on remarks made Wednesday by outgoing Justice David Souter.

While much of Washington speculates on who will succeed Justice David Souter, the retiring — in every sense of the word — jurist revealed Wednesday what he will do upon leaving the bench.

Souter announced that he had agreed to serve on New Hampshire’s curriculum committee on civics education, his small way of helping turn back a rising tide of ignorance that, he warned, threatens America’s democratic institutions.

America’s democratic character “is being lost,” he said. “It is lost if it is not understood. If it is not understood, it will leach away.”

Souter addressed a lunchtime crowd at a conference named for a colleague he soon will join in retirement, the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary. O’Connor and Justice Stephen Breyer founded the project in 2006 to respond to what they saw as a barrage of attacks on judicial independence. Souter, whom O’Connor had nudged to attend the first conference, said he had realized that judge-bashing was a symptom of something else–Americans’ unfamiliarity with the institutions that govern them.

Still, in keeping with his reclusive reputation, Souter made sure that most Americans would remain unfamiliar with him–he wouldn’t allow broadcast of his remarks, and politely declined interview requests. A BBC reporter asked if he might go on one the British broadcaster’s programs. Souter, 69, declined, explaining, “I’m shy.” He told us that he planned no farewell press conference or interviews.

Souter’s tone, often sharp in his questioning at Supreme Court arguments, was softer and sentimental, as he recalled his boyhood in Weare, N.H. There, in the same town hall where school plays and dances were held, he learned civics by watching the direct democracy of a New England town meeting. His own understanding of due process came from observing how the town moderator ran those meetings, ensuring that everyone had a chance to speak, and that even those whose views didn’t prevail felt they had a fair shot.

After the speech, O’Connor, 79, jumped up to hug her old friend. Like many in the audience–which included state and federal judges, law professors and practitioners, and a few world-weary journalists — O’Connor seemed surprised at how moving Souter’s remarks were. She said his speech brought a tear to her eye.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).