David Hackett Souter: Traditional Republican on the Rehnquist Court

When the first President Bush chose David Hackett Souter for the Supreme Court in 1990, the slender New Englander with the shy demeanor and ambiguous past was quickly dubbed a stealth candidate. Since his appointment, Souter has embraced a flexible, evolving, and highly pragmatic judicial style that embraces a high regard for precedent--even liberal decisions of the Warren and Burger Courts with which he may have personally disagreed. Ultimately, Yarbrough contends, Souter has become the principal Rehnquist Court opponent of the originalist, text-bound jurisprudence that many of the more conservative Justices profess to champion. Sifting through Souter's opinions, papers of the Justice's contemporaries and other relevant records and interviews, esteemed Supreme Court biographer Tinsley Yarbrough here gives us the real David Souter, crafting a fascinating account of one of the heretofore most elusive Justices in the history of the Court.

Author: Tinsley E. Yarbrough
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 09/22/2005
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.36lbs
Size: 9.51h x 6.50w x 1.05d
ISBN: 9780195159332

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/01/2005 pg. 55
Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 55
Library Journal 09/15/2005 pg. 77

About the Author

Tinsley E. Yarbrough is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, Department of Political Science, East Carolina University. His books include The Rehnquist Court and the Constitution, Judicial Enigma: The First Justice Harlan, John Marshall Harlan: Great Dissenter of the Warren Court, and Judge Frank Johnson and Human Rights in Alabama, for which he won an ABA Silver Gavel Award. He lives in Greenville, North Carolina.

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