Justice Souter, On the Move

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter was the main speaker over the weekend at the American Bar Association's annual meeting in Chicago, as colleague Lynne Marek reported here. He made a powerful plea for improvements in civic education, urging lawyers to pitch in, "in every way that you can." Souter himself is taking an active role in a New Hampshire task force that will look for ways to improve civics teaching there.

It appears that Souter has another project underway as well: moving out of his family homestead in Weare, N.H. and into a newer house in nearby Hopkinton that will better hold his book collection. According to press reports from New Hampshire, including this one, Souter last week purchased the new 3,500-square foot home for $510,000 from New England College president Michele Perkins. It's apparently a popular trick-or-treat destination. 

Souter's aging farmhouse in Weare became famous when he was first nominated to the high court in 1990. With peeling paint, a dusty interior and surrounded by knee-high grass, the house seemed to symbolize Souter's almost hermit-like private persona for the media hordes that descended on Weare. It also took on symbolic significance after the Court's controversial 2005 eminent domain ruling Kelo v. City of New London, when an unsuccessful effort was launched to take the home by eminent domain to punish Souter, who was in the majority.  

Why the move? A neighbor told reporters that Souter said his farmhouse was not structurally sound enough to support the thousands of books in his library. In a talk in March first reported here, Souter lamented that he underwent "an intellectual lobotomy" during the Court term that prevented him from doing the reading he relished. Some read it as a hint that he was ready to depart from the Court to resume his intellectual pursuits. Now he'll have a home better suited to the task.

Comments

[Jesus Arocho]

I understand the role of the judiciary and do explain that to my children; my problem is how to explain the frequent incursions of the judiciary into areas that rightfully belong to the legislative branch.