Former US Supreme Court Justice Souter dies, court says
Justice David Souter sits as Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States pose for a 2006 class photo inside the Supreme Court in Washington March 3, 2006. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter died on Thursday at his New Hampshire home, the court said in a statement on Friday. He was 85.
Justice Souter was appointed to the court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 and served 19 years on the court before he retired in 2009.
"Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years. He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service," Chief Justice John Roberts said in the statement. "He will be greatly missed."
When liberal stalwart William Brennan suddenly retired from the nation's top judicial body in 1990, Republican President George H.W. Bush chose Souter, then an obscure federal judge from New Hampshire with almost nothing known about his views on major issues.
Bush, in selecting Souter, said he was familiar with his nominee's "general views" but did not apply "the litmus test approach" on abortion or other issues. White House officials at the time assured conservative Republicans that Souter would be a "home run" when it came to his legal views.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
13 minutes ago
- The Star
US cities brace for more protests as parts of Los Angeles placed under curfew
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Several U.S. cities braced for protests on Wednesday against President Donald Trump's sweeping immigration raids, as parts of the country's second largest city Los Angeles spent the night under curfew in an effort to quell five days of unrest. The Governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, said he will deploy the National Guard this week, ahead of planned protests. Protesters and police in Austin clashed on Monday. Trump's extraordinary measures of sending National Guard and Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles has sparked a national debate on the use of military on U.S. soil and pitted the Republican president against California's Democrat governor. "This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk. That's when the downward spiral began," California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a video address on Tuesday. "He again chose escalation. He chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety. ... Democracy is under assault." Newsom, widely seen as preparing for a presidential run in 2028, and the state of California sued Trump and the Defense Department on Monday, seeking to block the deployment of federal troops. Trump in turn has suggested Newsom should be arrested. Hundreds of U.S. Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday under orders from Trump, after he also ordered the deployment of 4,000 National Guard to the city. Marines and National Guard are to be used in the protection of government personnel and buildings and not in police action. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the deployments were not necessary as police could manage the protest, the majority of which have been peaceful, and limited to about five streets. However, due to looting and violence at night she imposed a curfew over one square mile of the city's downtown, starting Tuesday night. The curfew will last several days. Police said multiple groups stayed on the streets in some areas despite the curfew and "mass arrests" were initiated. Police earlier said that 197 people had already been arrested on Tuesday - more than double the total number of arrests to date. Democratic leaders have raised concerns over a national crisis in what has become the most intense flashpoint yet in the Trump administration's efforts to deport migrants living in the country illegally, and then crack down on opponents who take to the streets in protest. Trump, voted back into office last year largely for his promise to deport undocumented immigrants, used a speech honoring soldiers on Tuesday to defend his decision. He told troops at the army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina: "Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third-world lawlessness." 'FULL-BLOWN ASSAULT' "What you're witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags," Trump said, adding his administration would "liberate Los Angeles." Demonstrators have waved the flags of Mexico and other countries in solidarity for the migrants rounded up in a series of intensifying raids. Homeland Security said on Monday its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division had arrested 2,000 immigration offenders per day recently, far above the 311 daily average in fiscal year 2024 under former President Joe Biden. Protests have also taken place in other cities including New York, Atlanta and Chicago, where demonstrators shouted at and scuffled with officers. Some protesters climbed onto the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, while others chanted that ICE should be abolished. Texas Governor Abbott said late on Tuesday that he will deploy the National Guard, which "will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order." "Texas National Guard will be deployed to locations across the state to ensure peace & order. Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest," Abbott posted on X. South Texas organizations are expected to hold anti-ICE rallies on Wednesday and Saturday, CNN reported local media as saying. About 700 Marines were in a staging area in the Seal Beach area about 30 miles (50 km) south of Los Angeles on Tuesday, awaiting deployment to specific locations, a U.S. official said. California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Reuters the state was concerned about allowing federal troops to protect personnel, saying there was a risk that could violate an 1878 law that generally forbids the U.S. military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civilian law enforcement. "Protecting personnel likely means accompanying ICE agents into communities and neighborhoods, and protecting functions could mean protecting the ICE function of enforcing the immigration law," Bonta said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday posted photos on X of National Guard troops accompanying ICE officers on an immigration raid. Trump administration officials have vowed to redouble the immigration raids in response to the street protests. The last time the military was used for direct police action under the Insurrection Act was in 1992, when the California governor at the time asked President George H.W. Bush to help respond to Los Angeles riots over the acquittal of police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King. (Reporting by Jorge Garcia, Brad Brooks, Jane Ross and Arafat Barbakh in Los Angeles, Dietrich Knauth in New York, Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Additional reporting by Sandy Hooper, Costas Pitas, Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Ismail Shakil, Jasper Ward and Costas Pitas; Writing by Joseph Ax, Daniel Trotta and Michael Perry; Editing by Mary Milliken, Alistair Bell, Rod Nickel, Don Durfee and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
California governor goes on offensive as Trump squeezes LA
LOS ANGELES: California Governor Gavin Newsom went on the political offensive Tuesday with a dire warning that Donald Trump's crackdown on California 'will not end here,' attacking the president's policies across the country. Newsom, who observers say is weighing a presidential run in 2028, has been full-throated in his insistence that Trump overstepped his authority by deploying troops to Los Angeles to quell days of unruly protests against immigration raids. But on Tuesday he went well beyond accusing the president of stoking tensions in the country's second-biggest city to attack Trump's ongoing, polarizing effort to 'Make America Great Again.' 'California may be first, but it clearly will not end here,' Newsom warned in the live-streamed address. Trump, he said, is a 'president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American tradition.' The actions of immigration agents -- who Newsom said had used unmarked cars to detain a heavily pregnant US citizen and a four-year-old girl -- are worrying precepts of the administration. 'If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe,' he said. 'Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.' Newsom ran through a stark list of the Republican leader's actions since he returned to the White House in January, from firing government watchdogs to threatening universities' funding and targeting law firms. 'He's declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself,' the 57-year-old Democrat said. This weekend, Trump will spend his 79th birthday watching tanks rumble through Washington at a parade to mark the 250th anniversary of the US army. Newsom accused him of 'forcing' the military 'to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.' He charged Trump with 'taking a wrecking ball' to American democracy, and said there were 'no longer any checks and balances' on the president. 'Congress is nowhere to be found,' Newsom said. He called on Americans to 'stand up and be held to account,' but urged any protesters to do so peacefully. 'I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress and fear,' he said. 'What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.' A presumed frontrunner for Democratic leadership, Newsom has made no secret of his political ambitions and has not shied away from a public showdown with Trump. In the five days since the Los Angeles protests began, he has brawled with officials on social media and dared the Trump administration to make good on its threats to arrest him.
New Straits Times
7 hours ago
- New Straits Times
ICE's tactics draw criticism as it triples daily arrest targets
MIGRANT workers picked up at a well-known Italian restaurant in San Diego. A high school volleyball player detained and held for deportation after a traffic stop in Massachusetts. Courthouse arrests of people who entered the US legally and were not hiding. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers (ICE) have been intensifying efforts in recent weeks to deliver on Republican President Donald Trump's promise of record-level deportations. The White House has demanded the agency sharply increase arrests of migrants in the US illegally, sources have told Reuters. That has meant changing tactics to achieve higher quotas of 3,000 arrests per day, far above the earlier target of 1,000 per day. Community members and Democrats have pushed back, arguing that ICE is targeting people indiscriminately and stoking fear. Tensions boiled over in Los Angeles over the weekend when protesters took to the streets after ICE arrested migrants at Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse, according to migrant advocates. "It seems like they're just arresting people they think might be in the country without status and amenable to deportation," said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the US immigration policy programme at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. The apparent shift further undercuts the Trump administration message that they are focused on the "worst of the worst" criminal offenders, and suggests they are pursuing more people solely on the basis of immigration violations. Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, told Reuters in late May that the administration had deported around 200,000 people over four months. The total lags deportations during a similar period under former President Joe Biden, who faced higher levels of illegal immigration and quickly deported many recent crossers. ICE's operations appeared to intensify after Stephen Miller, a top White House official and the architect of Trump's immigration agenda, excoriated senior ICE officials in a late May meeting over what he said were insufficient arrests. During the meeting, Miller said ICE should pick up any immigration offenders and not worry about targeted operations that focus on criminals or other priorities for deportation, three people familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity to share the details. Miller said ICE should target stores where migrant workers often congregate, such as the home improvement retailer Home Depot and 7-Eleven convenience stores, two of the people said. The message was "all about the numbers, not the level of criminality," one of the people said. Miller did not seem to be taking into account the complexities of immigration enforcement, one former ICE official said. In Los Angeles, for example, a 2024 court decision limits ICE's ability to knock on doors to make immigration arrests and local law enforcement does not cooperate fully with federal immigration authorities. "The numbers they want are just not possible in a place like L.A. unless you go to day labourer sites and arrest every illegal alien," the former ICE official said. A DHS spokesperson said ICE officers executed criminal search warrants at the restaurant in San Diego; that the high school volleyball player in Massachusetts was subject to deportation; and that courthouse arrests were aimed at speeding up removals of migrants who entered under Biden. On Sunday, more than a hundred people gathered outside the jail in Butler County, Ohio, to protest the detention of Emerson Colindres, 19, a standout soccer player from Honduras who graduated from high school in May. Colindres, who has been in the US since he was 8 years old, was being monitored via an ICE "alternatives to detention" programme that uses cell phone calls, ankle bracelets and other devices to track people. He received a text message to come in for an appointment last week and was taken into custody on arrival. Colindres was ordered deported after his family's asylum claim was denied, but he had been appearing for regular check-ins and had a pending visa application, his mother, Ada Baquedano, said in an interview. "They want to deport him, but he knows nothing about our country," she said. "He's been here since he was very little." The DHS spokesperson said Colindres had a final deportation order and that too many people with such orders had previously been placed on alternatives to detention. "If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen," the spokesperson said. The Migration Policy Institute's Gelatt said detaining people at ICE check-ins will help the agency boost arrest numbers. But these are often people who are already cooperating with ICE and could cost more to detain.
