Unwise to Quiz Souter on Specifics, Stevens Says

CHICAGO —  Justice John Paul Stevens said Tuesday that it would be unwise for the Senate to question Supreme Court nominee David H. Souter closely on specific legal issues during his confirmation hearings next month.

Moreover, even if Souter directly responds to such questions, his answers may not disclose much about how he would rule as a justice, Stevens said.

Because Souter has said and written little on the most controversial issues before the high court, legal activists have said that senators must interrogate the longtime New Hampshire judge on such issues as abortion, civil rights, free speech and religion.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a key member of the Judiciary Committee, sounded that theme in a speech to the American Bar Assn. here Monday.

Souter’s lack of a track record “means the Senate must ask more, not less, about his views,” Kennedy said. “In this day and age, the Senate will not confirm a blank slate to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Kennedy denounced what he called “the unseemly attempts” by the Bush Administration to “muzzle the Senate confirmation process.”

“One thing is certain. The Senate Judiciary Committee intends to find out what Judge Souter thinks about the Constitution,” Kennedy said.

But Justice Stevens, who was confirmed to the high court in 1975, disputed the common assumption that a nominee’s answers to detailed questions will forecast his decisions on the court.

Stevens did not mention Souter directly and stopped short of urging the Senate to forgo the public questioning of President Bush’s high court nominee. But he did voice doubt about whether the exercise is productive.

“It is a mistake to predict, based on the confirmation hearings, how a nominee will vote when he comes on the court,” the 70-year-old Stevens told an ABA gathering Tuesday. He cited as an example former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was appointed as a law-and-order conservative by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. “If he had been asked at his confirmation hearing about busing, he might have said it was not the best idea,” Stevens said.

Yet, Burger in 1971 wrote the Supreme Court opinion that led to court-ordered busing for school desegregation nationwide.

Stevens might have cited himself as an example of the unpredictability of court appointees. President Gerald R. Ford chose Stevens on the assumption that he would be a moderate conservative. Instead, he regularly sides with the court’s liberal faction.