Supreme Court · Associate Justice
David Souter
Republican appointee: Appointed by George H.W. Bush (R)
Served 1990–2009 · 19 terms
Confirmed 90–9
Biography
David Hackett Souter was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1990 to 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat that had been vacated by William J. Brennan Jr., Souter was a member of both the Rehnquist and Roberts courts.
Source: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Ideology over time
Souter and the 13 justices who overlapped with Souter, 1990–2008
- David Souter
- 95% credible interval
- Peer, appointed by a Democrat
- Peer, appointed by a Republican
- Court median
How to read this
Martin–Quinn scores place each justice on a single liberal–conservative dimension, estimated from their votes across terms, with scores allowed to shift from one term to the next. Higher is more conservative. The shaded band is the credible interval: wider when the record is thin, especially in a justice’s first terms, and narrower as votes accumulate.
Where Souter sits among all justices
Career average, every justice in the data set
Souter’s range across terms
Served alongside Souter
13 justicesClosest career average first. Filled dot: the peer. Ring: Souter.
How Souter voted
Every argued case Souter took part in, newest first, with how Souter voted in each: with the majority, in dissent, or in an equally divided Court. A Liberal or Conservative tag is the Supreme Court Database’s coding of who prevailed in the case, not a rating of the justices.
Data notes
The Decisions page’s argued cases with this justice’s vote from the Supreme Court Database. “Majority” includes a concurrence; a vote that dissented in part is coded by the side the justice took overall. Cases the justice sat out and equally divided cases are left out of the percentages. “Wrote” means authored an opinion. Source: Supreme Court Database (Spaeth et al.).