ECU professor pens biography on Justice Souter

East Carolina University political science professor Tinsley Yarbrough has written the first biography about Supreme Court justice David Hackett Souter.

In “David Hackett Souter: Traditional Republican on the Rehnquist Court” (Oxford University Press, Sept. 2005), Yarbrough explores the career of Justice Souter, who was appointed to the court by President George Bush in 1990, and, he writes, is considered the principal opponent of the Rehnquist Court.

“This book examines the life, career, and jurisprudence of one of the Rehnquist Court’s most intriguing justices — a jurist whose firm regard for precedent … has driven him in decidedly different directions from most other Reagan Bush I appointees to the Supreme Court,” Yarbrough writes in the preface.

This is the first biography of Souter, who earned the nickname “stealth candidate” during his nomination hearings.

This is Yarbrough’s ninth book. His other works include “The Rehnquist Court and the Constitution”(Oxford University Press, 2000); “The Judicial Enigma: The First Justice Harlan” (Oxford University Press, 1995); “John Marshall Harlan: Great Dissenter of the Warren Court” (Oxford University Press, 1992); “Mr. Justice Black and His Critics” (Duke, 1988); “A Passion for Justice” (Oxford University Press, 1987); and “Judge Frank Johnson and Human Rights in Alabama” (Ala., 1981).