Georgetown Law Remembers Supreme Court Justice David Souter

“Justice Souter will be remembered for his commitment to our fundamental constitutional values and principles of democracy,” said Dean William M. Treanor. “As a Justice, his opinions and dissents were insightful and deliberate. He recognized the Court’s role in ensuring justice for all Americans. I respected him greatly.”

Treanor also related an anecdote he’d heard from Professor James Oldham: “Justice Souter was noted for his dry sense of humor. At one point in his tenure, he was being criticized for not producing his opinions quickly enough. Jim Oldham visited him then, shortly after producing a two-volume book on Lord Mansfield [the 18th century chief justice of the English Court of Common Pleas]. Justice Souter asked him how long he had been working on the book. ‘Twelve years,’ Jim replied. ‘I wish I could dash things off like that,’ Justice Souter said.”

Souter famously shunned the public spotlight, preferring to spend his time away from the bench hiking and reading in his home state of New Hampshire, but he did speak once on the Georgetown Law campus, at a 2009 conference on judicial independence and civic education organized through the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary, a partnership between retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and the Law Center. Adjunct Professor Meryl Chertoff, who served as executive director of the project, recalled his speech as illuminating and moving.

“He talked about how his own civic education was centered in his experiences as a boy going to New England town meetings, where he saw that everyone who cared to participate had the opportunity to speak and received a respectful hearing,” said Chertoff. “He saw this as a great example of democracy in action, where the town meeting functioned both as a forum and a classroom.”

Professor Mark Jia clerked for Souter, by that time retired from the Court, in 2019-2020. “Justice Souter was a person of great modesty and integrity. We will all miss him dearly,” said Jia.