Justice Souter, Proceduralist
Abstract
Justice Souter’s abrupt retirement from the Court after nearly twenty years presents a unique opportunity to comment on his legacy. No doubt others will eulogize or castigate him for his membership in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey troika, but there is much more to the man and his jurisprudence. Indeed, the danger is that Justice Souter will be pigeonholed into one opinion, an opinion that he wrote early in his Supreme Court career, to the detriment of understanding the complex justice that he was. I therefore analyze an unusual set of opinions—those that he authored on civil procedure. And what I find is a justice deeply committed to the fair treatment of the litigants that come before him. No other judicial philosophy or methodology better explains his civil rules opinions. And that trait says much about David Souter, both the man and the justice.