Each of these Justices has what could be called signature cases, with some splashy opinion reaching to be a watershed. That Justice Souter, in truth, does not is revealed by the many articles published since his passing, which tend to discuss his erudition, decency, and wit, and even his lunch, exercise, sartorial habits, and other charming New Englander quirks—but not so much in the way of influential writings. Even the undoubtedly important Casey plurality opinion’s zingers—“Liberty takes no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt” and “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life”—are more commonly attributed to Justice O’Connor and Justice Kennedy. Justice Souter approached judging as a careful duty, not a vehicle for quotable soundbites or a run at a judicial Mount Rushmore. He inspired people who worked with him to extraordinary levels of affection and emulation that might well be inversely proportional to how vividly history will mark the impact of his jurisprudence.
Soon after retiring from the Court, Justice Souter received an honorary degree from Harvard, his alma mater, and delivered a commencement address about uncertainty in constitutional judging. His words read differently in 2025 than they did when he wrote them, in 2010. He was warning against the illusion of the simple answer or the absolute resolution—a “longing for a world without ambiguity,” as he put it—that has since overwhelmed our society. “The Constitution embodies the desire of the American people, like most people, to have things both ways. We want order and security, and we want liberty. And we want not only liberty but equality as well,” he observed. And yet “the Constitution gives no simple rule of decision for the cases in which one of the values is truly at odds with another.” He rued how “egregiously it misses the point to think of judges in constitutional cases as just sitting there reading constitutional phrases fairly and looking at reported facts objectively to produce their judgments.” The Framers deliberately left tensions of values “to be resolved another day . . . when the significance of old facts may have changed in the changing world.” Against the “dreams of a simpler Constitution,” Justice Souter counterposed a “belief that in an indeterminate world I cannot control, it is still possible to live fully in the trust that a way will be found leading through the uncertain future.”