Reporting from Washington — With the announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, President Obama said today that he would seek a replacement with "a sharp and independent mind."
"He came to the bench with no particular ideology," Obama said of Souter during an impromptu appearance in the press briefing room in the West Wing of the White House. "He consistently defied labels and resisted absolutes."
In his place, Obama said, he appoint someone who understands more than just a "footnote in a case book" but also the realities of how the law affects people's daily lives. Obama said he valued the "quality of empathy" and was hopeful of finding a new justice who would reflect on people's "hopes and struggles" in the process of arriving at legal decisions.
The president said he would consult with members of Congress of both parties as he proceeds in his search for "somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values."
He hopes to have the new justice seated by October, the beginning of the court's next term.
With Obama's background as a teacher of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, he "will be actively engaged in discussions . . . in the right kind of candidate to pick, ensuring diversity in their background and experience," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today.
Asked about any "short list" for an opening on the court, Gibbs said, "Many people here have been working on the likely eventuality . . . that there might be a Supreme Court opening. They've been going through names, but I'm not going to get into a short, medium or long list."
Asked if experience as a federal judge will be necessary, or if the president might seek someone who has spent a career in politics, Gibbs said: "The president . . . will look for diversity of experience. . . . I don't want to get into exactly this or that qualification, but a diversity of experience."
Among legal and political observers, speculation has focused on a field that includes at least one candidate who could offer the high court its first Latino justice and a second woman on the bench: Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
Other potential candidates are said to include the Obama administration's solicitor general, Elena Kagan; Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago; and Judge Kim Wardlaw of the 9th Circuit in California.
The names of Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of the Stanford Law School, and Seth Waxman, a former U.S. solicitor general, have also circulated, as has that of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
Asked how important diversity would be in the selection of a nominee, Gibbs said of the president's considerations: "I think the most important thing, to him, is diversity of experience -- somebody who has not just thought about the law, but somebody who has the type of experience to understand how the decisions that he or she might make . . . might affect everyday, average Americans."
For instance, on a question of pay disparities for women, he said, that would call for "a person who could understand, through empathy, the situation that she was dealing with."
The replacement of Souter, 69, is unlikely to alter the Supreme Court's ideological balance because he has proved to be a reliable liberal on all major issues decided recently -- including abortion, civil rights, religion, Guantanamo Bay detention and the death penalty.
This could be only the first of Obama's opportunities to shape the court, however.
Two of Souter's favorite colleagues -- Justices John Paul Stevens, 89, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 76 -- have been the center of retirement speculation.
Liberal activists have high hopes that Obama will appoint a solid liberal. Though President Clinton's appointees -- Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer -- have voted reliably on the liberal side, neither has been a champion of social justice in the style of the late Justices William J. Brennan and Thurgood Marshall.
mdsilva@latimes.com
cparsons@latimes.com
Times staff writer David G. Savage contributed to this report.
