SOUTER, DAVID H(ACKETT)

born Sept. 17, 1939, Melrose, Mass., U.S. associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1990. Souter spent his early childhood in a Boston suburb before his family moved to rural Weare, N.H., in 1950; his father was a banker and his mother a store clerk. After attending Concord (N.H.) High School, the young Souter went to Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1961. He then spent two years at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar. He entered Harvard Law School upon his return to the United States, receiving his law degree in 1966. He spent just two years in private practice in Concord before joining the New Hampshire attorney general's office. In 1976 he was appointed state attorney general, becoming a frequent defender of the policies of the ultraconservative administration led by Governor Meldrim Thomson, Jr. In 1978 Thomson appointed Souter associate justice of New Hampshire's Superior Court. In 1983 a new governor, John Sununu, equally conservative, appointed Souter to the state Supreme Court. Souter's reputation on the court was that of one favouring prosecutors and resisting any reversal of criminal convictions. In May 1990, during the administration of President George Bush, Souter was confirmed as judge of the United States Court of Appeals, lst Circuit, in Boston. Two months later, Bush nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, after confirmation, he joined in October.