David H. Souter began his high court adventure as the “stealth nominee” and he ends it as the “stealth justice” in his steadfast refusal to shine any light on his personal thoughts or life. But there is nothing stealthy about the decision on which much of his legacy will rest.
After years on the U.S. Supreme Court and hundreds of opinions, the legacy of a justice ironically almost always comes down to a handful of decisions in the public’s mind. At the top of a Souter list would have to be the remarkable “troika” majority ruling in 1992 that reaffirmed a woman’s right to choose an abortion — Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
