Former Justice Souter dies at age 85 at home in New Hampshire

Retired Justice David Souter died peacefully Thursday at his home in New Hampshire, the Supreme Court confirmed Friday.

He was 85 years old. He had served on the high court from 1990 to 2009.

Justice Souter was appointed to the high court by the late President George H.W. Bush, a Republican.

“Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years. He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. After retiring to his beloved New Hampshire in 2009, he continued to render significant service to our branch by sitting regularly on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than a decade. He will be greatly missed,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in a statement.

Prior to joining the Supreme Court, Justice Souter served as the attorney general for New Hampshire and eventually served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court before being elevated to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990.

He was then quickly appointed to the Supreme Court after the Senate confirmed him on a 90-9 vote.

After he retired in 2009, President Obama appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor to his seat. Justice Sotomayor said he was a  “unique man with a special kindness and grace.” 

“He joined the Court purely out of a sense of duty to the country. He loved his home in New Hampshire dearly and he left it only to serve his Nation. When I arrived at the Court, no one was more welcoming to me than David. After his retirement, he periodically sent me notes, which I will forever treasure for their insightfulness and beautiful turns of phrase. I know no one who cherished books more than David, and he filled his mind and heart with the lessons of beauty they imparted,” she said in a statement Friday.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who served with Justice Souter for about three years, also recalled his love for books.

“It was a pleasure and an honor to serve with him at the beginning of my time on the Supreme Court. I was impressed by his learning, his dedication to the law, and his delightfully old-fashioned ways. I was very sorry to see him retire, but he sorely missed his native New Hampshire and his book-laden home there, and I was happy that he was able to spend the last 16 years of his life in the surroundings he cherished living the kind of private life he preferred,” Justice Alito said in a statement Friday.

When Justice Souter was first appointed to the court, he had a reputation to be a conservative justice but later moved to the middle and “became a darling of liberals,” according to The Associated Press.

He became a loyal vote to uphold abortion rights, refusing to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Justice Souter was also reliably a liberal vote on church-state issues, freedom of expression and access to federal courts.

He was part of the dissent in Bush v. Gore in 2000, which handed President George W. Bush the presidency.

His shift became known as “pulling a Souter” and helped change the way Supreme Court confirmation hearings have been for GOP appointees. “No more Souters” became a rallying cry for conservatives in a 2005 Wall Street Journal op-ed where the paper warned of President Bush’s pending decision on who to appoint to the high court at the time. Mr. Bush nominated both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the bench that year.

Justice Souter lived a modest life, renting an apartment near the court and returning to a farmhouse in Weare, New Hampshire, where he grew up in the summers when the court was out of session. 

He was known to take runs by himself and at one point, was mugged.

For lunch, he often had just an apple and yogurt at his desk. He was not known to be part of the Washington social scene.

In his retirement, Justice Souter worked to improve civics education. He warned that not understanding how government works could undermine democracy.

“What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough … some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.’ That is how the Roman republic fell,” Justice Souter said in 2012.

Justice Souter served as the court’s 105th justice and was its sixth bachelor, never having married.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Justice Souter’s Senate confirmation vote tally.

• Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.

• This article was based in part on wire service reports.