With all respect to Prof. Sager, I think Souter's comment about Brennan was in response to a Senator's specific question about how Brennan would be remembered, not about which Justice Souter most admired. The first question by Sen. Biden at Souter's hearing contained a statement by Biden that Sen Rudman "has indicated that one of the Supreme Court Justices you most admire was the second Justice Harlan..." Biden then asked whether Souter agreed with Harlan's views in Griswold, and Souter said he was generally in accord with Harlan's approach.
-------Original Message------- From: Larry Sager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 06/02/03 12:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Souter and Harlan > Steve WermielThis is what Justice Souter said about Jusice Brennan in the course of his confirmation hearings:
Justice Brennan is going to be remembered as one of the most fearlessly principled guardians of the American Constitution that it has ever had and ever will have. No one following Justice Brennan, absolutely no one, could possibly say a word to put himself in the league with Justice Brennan. All you can do is say what perhaps once Justice Brennan said, "I will do the best I can."
I wrote about this in a postscript to a a review of Robert Bork. "Back to Bork", NYRB October 25, 1990. The postscript contains some other statements of Souter as well, statements that were pretty clear harbingers of who Souter was.
--Larry Sager
At 03:40 PM 6/1/2003 -0400, you wrote:
I seem to recall that during his confirmation hearings Justice Souter said he most admired the second Justice Harlan. Can anyone confirm that? Has Souter ever expressed his admiration for Harlan since thaen?***********************************************
Professor David E. Bernstein
George Mason University School of Law
http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste
blog: http://bernstein.blogspot.com
My latest book, You Can't Say That!
The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties
from Antidiscrimination Laws, will
be published in October
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