Souter, David Hackett (1939– )

US Supreme Court associate justice from 1990. A former attorney general of New Hampshire 1976–78, he was nominated to the court by President George H W Bush in 1990.

Born in Melrose, Massachusetts, Souter graduated from Harvard College, received a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, and graduated from Harvard Law School. After private practice in New Hampshire, Souter served as state deputy attorney general from 1971 before being appointed state attorney general in 1976.

He became a judge on the state trial court in 1978 and was named to the state supreme court in 1983. He was appointed by President Bush to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in 1990 and to the Supreme Court later in the same year.