Legal News

More on Souter . . . And Specter and Shakespeare

By Ashby Jones

A few further snippets on the Souter departure have come our way this morning, and rather than hoard them all to ourselves, we thought we’d share the love.

A Specter of Delay? Over at the Election Law blog, Loyola’s Rick Hasen has some interesting thoughts on how the confirmation process for Justice Souter’s replacement might play out, especially in light of Senator Arlen Specter’s recent defection to the Democratic party. Writes Hasen:

Senator Specter has been the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and with his change to a Democrat, it could be Senator Grassley or someone else who takes [over] as ranking minority member. This can affect both timing and who President Obama might choose.

On timing, it is going to take some time for the new ranking member to set things up. There could be delays in getting the vetting process open, and Democrats will be hard pressed to rush the process given that it is Specter’s departure that caused the delay. Of course, the more controversial the candidate, the more time Republicans are likely to take. . . . But it is not a given that, even if the President nominates someone promptly, that the person will be seated the first Monday in October.

Souter and Shakespeare: A few weeks ago, Jess Bravin, the WSJ’s Supreme Court reporter wrote an amusing piece about Justice John Paul Stevens’s rather developed thoughts on the “authorship question” pertaining to Shakespeare. (Here’s our blog post on the story.) The gist of it: Stevens has done his research and feels strongly that the Bard of Avon’s plays were largely the work of the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.

One of the strange things about the piece was that others on the court — namely Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Breyer — all seemed to have an opinion on the matter as well.

So we found it somewhat refreshing to read Justice Souter’s comments on the matter, which didn’t make their way into Bravin’s story. Writes Bravin:

When asked his views of the Shakespeare authorship question, Justice David Souter recalled the comment of the late Harvard professor George Lyman Kittredge, who in his day faced claims that Sir Francis Bacon was the true genius behind the Bard. “I’ll agree that Bacon wrote Shakespeare if you’ll tell me who wrote Bacon,” Kittredge liked to say, Justice Souter said.

As far as his own position, Justice Souter was far less decisive than he has been on recent cases involving the Fourth Amendment and punitive damages. “I have no idea who wrote the plays, but I’m glad someone did,” he said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 01, 2009 (boomark / email).