Word: souter
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...what was still a liberal-leaning bench, he was so isolated that his clerks took to calling him the Lone Ranger. These days he no longer rides alone: he routinely joins a group that includes Reagan appointees Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor and Bush appointee David Souter. Having written only a few rulings since joining the court this term, Souter remains something of an , enigma; yet he has clearly provided the right wing -- spearheaded by Rehnquist and Scalia -- with a crucial fifth vote in a number of important cases in which his predecessor Brennan would almost certainly...
...those laws could provide the court with an opportunity to overturn Roe -- a prospect that seemed nearer than ever after last month's decision in Rust v. Sullivan. In that case, by a 5-to-4 vote in which Souter sided with the conservatives, the court ruled that doctors, nurses and other care providers at clinics that accept federal funds cannot even mention abortion to their patients. "I've never had much hope for this court," says Colleen O'Connor, public-education director for the A.C.L.U. "But I was never as dispirited as when it came down with the Rust...
Liberals can take heart in the tendency of some Justices to shift views during their years on the bench. Blackmun moved to the left from his first days on the court. On the whole, O'Connor has drifted toward the center. Souter, who voted the same way as O'Connor in dozens of cases this term, may yet do the same. But the possibility of gradual leftward movement is cold comfort to liberals who realize their two aging champions, Marshall and Blackmun, may eventually be replaced by George Bush appointees. And that would almost certainly turn the conservative bloc into...
...vote that stirred the most notice was the tie-breaking yea cast by David Souter, the court's newest Justice. Pro-choice advocates had earlier been encouraged by Souter's sharp questioning of U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth Starr during oral arguments in the Rust case last fall. "The physician cannot perform a normal professional responsibility," Souter had said. "You are telling us ((that the government)) in effect may preclude professional speech." Yet last week Souter concurred in a majority opinion based on that very reasoning. Since the ruling did not directly address the question of a woman's right...
This is not an exam question in a college philosophy course but a moral conundrum at the core of perhaps the most intriguing case facing the U.S. Supreme Court, Payne v. Tennessee. Justice David Souter, the court's swing vote, asked during oral argument last month whether "it really is legitimate to value victims differently depending upon the circumstances of the lives that they have chosen to lead." Tennessee Attorney General Charles Burson's response was unequivocal: "There can be no doubt that the taking of the life of the President creates much more societal harm than the taking...