in contrast justice souter has criticized this purely textual approach as having, quote, only a tenuous connection to reality. he believes that the plain text of the constitution as written in 1787 does not resolve the conflict in many of today's tough cases . rather, justice souter believes judges must look at the words and see, quote, to understand their meaning for living people. which view of the constitutional interpretation comes closer to your view and why? >> senator kohl, i don't really think that this is an either/or choice. i think that there are some circumstances in which looking to the original intent is the determine tiff thing in a case. other circumstances in which it is likely not. i think in general judges should look to a variety of sources when they interpret the constitution and which take precedence in a particular case is really a kind of case-by-case thing. >> reporter: the morning session went on for nearly four hours. solicitor general kagan answerd some questions and declined to answer others. after a mid afternoon lunch break senators were back at it with de

justice souter said we have to get rid of this quote mr. justice -- this "mr. justice" business. after that, we took off the term and just started using the term "justice." that was a couple of years before justice o'connor joined the court. i think a lot of people thought she was responsible for the change. i thought i would straighten out the record. [laughter] [applause] thought my second major historical -- my second major historical event that i want to describe it refers to the chicago cubs. [laughter] i was, in fact, a witness of the home run by babe ruth. last year i was responding to questions in one of the sessions where you get questions from the audience, and somebody asked me if i was really there. i said, yes i was, and i remember sitting behind third base and watching dave ruth -- baby ruth -- babe ruth pointing to center field and following up with the famous shot. after the discussion, when everybody had left, a young man came up to me, he may have been a bankruptcy judge and not as young a man as he seemed -- [laughter] he said he did not want to be responsible

in which souter, ginsburg, and breyer joined. kennedy filed an opinion concurring part in which souter, ginsburg, and breyer justices joined. scalia filed an opinion. there was a dissenting opinion in which sculley joined and alito joined as to all the parts 3b2. there was a consenting opinion. roberts, the chief justice, took no part of the case. i think the one thing you can be clear about is that roberts took no part in the decision of the case. if we are trying to say that the rule of law provides a set of boundaries in which people can make decisions with confidence and in the defense of the united states of america come we need for the objective branch to have a set of rules in which they cannot operate confidently. if we cannot operate constantly, what does it give to our enemy? it says that we are morally ambiguous and that we don't know how we're operating and what we can do. the defense of freedom requires the rule of law, and the rule of what is one of the greatest supporters of freedom. we move to the last case which

interview granted by new justice so vote -- sonia sotomayor and the only interview with justice david souter, who is notoriously camera shy. when the documentary was finished and we have these marvelous transcripts, we knew we had something special that ought to be recorded for the ages. we asked our colleagues at public affairs publishers in york city who have worked with us in the past if it would be interested in helping us publish a book. this is the brand new book on the supreme court, which came out in a timely way -- last week, just in time for the president's new nomination to the supreme court. and on the noon of its publication, we thought it would be appropriate to talk more about how the supreme court functions. tonight, we are pleased to have with us three of the people who are closely associated with the court, three panelists who were involved in this project. i will tell you about them later. and we're also pleased to have a justice bork himself here to talk to us for a bit. before we get to that, i would like to introduce dr. don van ee, who brought it wonderful archive that

last year, when justice souter announced his retirement and again when justice stevens announced his retirement this april, i suggested that the court would benefit from a broader range of experience among its members. my concern was not just the relative lack of women or racial or ethnic minorities on federal courts although that deficit remains glaring. i was noting the fact that the current justices all share very similar professional backgrounds. every one of them served as a federal circuit court judge before being appointed to the supreme court. not one of them has ever run for political office like sandra day o'connor, earl warren, hugo black. general change, i am genuinely heartened by what you would bring to the court based on your experience working in all three branches of government and the skills you developed running a complex institution like the harvard law school and yes, the prospect that your being the fourth woman to serve on the nation's highest court. some pundits and some senators have suggested your lack of judicial experience is somehow a liability. could i n

the court before justice sotomayor joined -- the court before she came with david sutter -- suitor souter was one of the most intelligence courts i have ever countered. no court i had ever covered before was its match. i do not know whether sotomayor is up to that. she is very good. what we have seen from her so far is most impressive. in fact, more impressive than i expected it to be, because i had seen some of her arguments on the second circuit and she is better than i thought she woold be. but i am not sure whether or not she is that next level up of intellect that the court had when it had david souter. to my mind, he was the smartest just as i have ever covered, with apologies with apologiessbryer, who is awfully smart to. >> we asked justice thomas when he chooses not to ask questions. this is a brief response. >> i think it is hard to have a conversation when nobody is listening, when you cannot complete sentences or answers. perhaps that is a southern thing. i do not know. but i think he should allow people to complete their answers and their thought and to continue their convers

if you look at justice souter retired last year and spoke at harvard law school -- actually at harvard university commencement, he did not say he was following the line of the constitution. he said the constitution is an inconsistent document and we have to pick and choose which parts we follow. that is not the philosophy of a strict constructionist. we have competing values with the constitution. this is because the founders who wrote the constitution felt they were riding it to help balance things and not write an internally consistent document. now that justice souter has spoken on this, we can see that his philosophy was not looking at the text of the constitution. host: let's get in one last