On Politics 5/1/09: A Justice Curiosity

In a rare occurrence, Justice David Souter announced today that he would retire from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of the term in June. Why is this an unusual circumstance? Because, apparently, Justice Souter is leaving in good health, and at the "young" age of 69. The recent history of our leading jurists is to hold on to the chair, literally and figuratively, until, much like a marriage, death does part you from your seat on the bench.

I have long been a proponent of independent judicial excellence. As stated in previous columns, I do not like justices being elected, given all the potential issues of party loyalty and political payback coming before the practice of jurisprudence. Yet some states, New York included, allow for the elections of various levels of justices to occur. It's difficult to understand why others would fail to see the potential pratfalls of such a custom, but let's leave that alone for today. With our highest court, we have a process of Presidential appointment and subsequent Senatorial confirmation to place someone on the Supreme Court.

Let's take a look at the curious case of Mr. Souter (why do we have to keep calling him "Judge" even after he retires? It's another oddity of life. I was once chess champion of my grammar school; should I wait to be addressed as "Champ" before responding to someone?). A relatively unknown gentleman, thought to be conservative, put forth by a Republican President becomes a consistent liberal block voter on most of the important social legislative issues (insert your own witty comment about how siding with the left made him smarter here.....go ahead, I know you want to). After the Bork debacle (oh the horrors of having too many written opinions), the right was determined to put forth someone that even they themselves knew nothing about, and had no trail of opinions, arguments, or decisions from which to learn about the individual. Well, guess what happened; he turned out to be completely different than what they erroneously expected, and now he'd like to leave the Capital lifestyle behind to return to isolation in his native New Hampshire.

Sometimes you have to turn the clean slate over to find out what's written on the back.