{"id":27154,"date":"2023-12-01T16:36:34","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T16:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/12\/01\/sandra-day-oconnor-the-first-woman-on-the-supreme-court-dies\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T05:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:07:17","slug":"sandra-day-oconnor-the-first-woman-on-the-supreme-court-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/fedlife\/2023\/12\/01\/sandra-day-oconnor-the-first-woman-on-the-supreme-court-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandra Day O\u2019Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, dies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O\u2019Connor<\/a>, an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism and the first woman to serve on the nation\u2019s highest court, died Friday. She was 93.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor died in Phoenix, of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness, the Supreme Court said in a news release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief Justice John Roberts mourned her death. \u201cA daughter of the American Southwest, Sandra Day O\u2019Connor blazed an historic trail as our Nation\u2019s first female Justice,\u201d Roberts said in statement issued by the court. \u201cShe met that challenge with undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, she announced<\/a> that she had been diagnosed with \u201cthe beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u201d Her husband, John O\u2019Connor, died of complications of Alzheimer\u2019s in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor\u2019s nomination in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and subsequent confirmation by the Senate<\/a> ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court. A native of Arizona who grew up on her family\u2019s sprawling ranch, O\u2019Connor wasted little time building a reputation as a hard worker who wielded considerable political clout on the nine-member court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
FILE – President Reagan presents his Supreme Court nominee Sandra Day O’Connor to members of the press in the White House Rose Garden, July 15, 1981, prior to their Oval Office meeting. O’Connor, who joined the Supreme Court in 1981 as the nation’s first female justice, has died at age 93. (AP Photo, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The granddaughter of a pioneer who traveled west from Vermont and founded the family ranch some three decades before Arizona became a state, O\u2019Connor had a tenacious, independent spirit that came naturally. As a child growing up in the remote outback, she learned early to ride horses, round up cattle and drive trucks and tractors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t do all the things the boys did,\u201d she said in a 1981 Time magazine interview, \u201cbut I fixed windmills and repaired fences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the bench, her influence could best be seen, and her legal thinking most closely scrutinized, in the court\u2019s rulings on abortion, perhaps the most contentious and divisive issue the justices faced. O\u2019Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions, refusing in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in 1992, she helped forge and lead a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. \u201cSome of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that can\u2019t control our decision,\u201d O\u2019Connor said in court, reading a summary of the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. \u201cOur obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirty years after that decision, a more conservative court<\/a> did overturn Roe and Casey, and the opinion was written by the man who took her high court seat, Justice Samuel Alito. He joined the court upon O\u2019Connor\u2019s retirement in 2006, chosen by President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2000, O\u2019Connor was part of the 5-4 majority that effectively resolved the disputed 2000 presidential election in favor of Bush, over Democrat Al Gore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor was regarded with great fondness by many of her colleagues. When she retired, Justice Clarence Thomas, a consistent conservative, called her \u201can outstanding colleague, civil in dissent and gracious when in the majority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She could, nonetheless, express her views tartly. In one of her final actions as a justice, a dissent to a 5-4 ruling to allow local governments to condemn and seize personal property to allow private developers to build shopping plazas, office buildings and other facilities, she warned that the majority had unwisely ceded yet more power to the powerful. \u201cThe specter of condemnation hangs over all property,\u201d O\u2019Connor wrote. \u201cNothing is to prevent the state from replacing … any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor, whom commentators had once called the nation\u2019s most powerful woman, remained the court\u2019s only woman until 1993, when, much to O\u2019Connor\u2019s delight and relief, President Bill Clinton nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The current court includes a record four women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

60,000 letters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The enormity of the reaction to O\u2019Connor\u2019s appointment had surprised her. She received more than 60,000 letters in her first year, more than any one member in the court\u2019s history. \u201cI had no idea when I was appointed how much it would mean to many people around the country,\u201d she once said. \u201cIt affected them in a very personal way. People saw it as a signal that there are virtually unlimited opportunities for women. It\u2019s important to parents for their daughters, and to daughters for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At times, the constant publicity was almost unbearable. \u201cI had never expected or aspired to be a Supreme Court justice,\u201d she said. \u201cMy first year on the court made me long at times for obscurity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following her retirement, O\u2019Connor expressed regret that a woman had not been chosen to replace her. O\u2019Connor remained active in the government even after she retired from the court. She sat as a judge on several federal appeals courts, advocated for judicial independence and served on the Iraq Study Group. She also was appointed to the honorary post of chancellor at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor cited her husband\u2019s struggle with Alzheimer\u2019s disease as her primary reason for leaving the court. After moving into an assisted living center, John O\u2019Connor struck up a romance with a fellow Alzheimer\u2019s patient, a relationship experts say is not uncommon among people with dementia. The retired justice was relieved that he was comfortable and happy at the center, according to her son, Scott.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the bench, O\u2019Connor generally favored states in disputes with the federal government. She often sided with police when they faced claims of violating people\u2019s rights. In 1985, she wrote for the court as it ruled that the confession of a criminal suspect first warned about his rights may be used as trial evidence, even if police violated the suspect\u2019s rights in obtaining an earlier confession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
FILE – President Barack Obama presents the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Sandra Day O’Connor, Aug. 12, 2009. O’Connor, who joined the Supreme Court in 1981 as the nation’s first female justice, has died at age 93. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A 1991 decision written by O\u2019Connor said police do not violate the Constitution\u2019s ban against unreasonable searches and seizures when they board buses and randomly ask passengers to consent to being searched. In a 1994 decision, O\u2019Connor said police officers need not stop questioning and seek clarification when a criminal suspect makes what might have been an ambiguous request for legal help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor wrote for the court in 1992, when it said prison guards violate inmates\u2019 rights by using unnecessary physical force even if no serious injuries result, and in 1993, when it ruled that employers may be guilty of illegal sexual harassment even in the absence of any psychological harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2004, O\u2019Connor wrote the majority opinion that went against the Bush administration in ruling that an American citizen seized on the Afghanistan battlefield can challenge his detention in U.S. courts. \u201cWe have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation\u2019s citizens,\u201d O\u2019Connor wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor once described herself and her eight fellow justices as nine firefighters: \u201cWhen (someone) lights a fire, we invariably are asked to attend to the blaze. We may arrive at the scene a few years later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor announced her retirement in a one-sentence written statement. She cited her age, then 75, and said she \u201cneeds to spend time\u201d with her family. Her official resignation letter to Bush was similarly succinct. \u201cIt has been a great privilege indeed to have served as a member of the court for 24 terms,\u201d the justice wrote. \u201cI will leave it with enormous respect for the integrity of the court and its role under our constitutional structure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Discerning and conscientious judge\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor an old ranching girl, you turned out pretty good,\u201d Bush told her in a private call not long after receiving her letter, an aide said. Then, in the Rose Garden outside the Oval Office, he praised her as \u201ca discerning and conscientious judge and a public servant of complete integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor was 51 when she joined the court to replace the retired Potter Stewart. A virtual unknown on the national scene until her appointment, she had served as an Arizona state judge and before that as a member of her state\u2019s Legislature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman who climbed higher in the legal profession than had any other woman did not begin her career auspiciously. As a top-ranked graduate of Stanford\u2019s prestigious law school, class of 1952, O\u2019Connor discovered that most large law firms did not hire women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Los Angeles firm offered her a job as a secretary. Perhaps it was that early experience that shaped O\u2019Connor\u2019s professional tenacity. While workweeks typically stretched to 60 hours or more, she found time to play tennis and golf. Before her husband developed Alzheimer\u2019s, they danced expertly and made frequent appearances on the Washington party circuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor\u2019s survivors include her three sons, Scott, Brian and Jay, six grandchildren and a brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late 1988, O\u2019Connor was diagnosed as having breast cancer, and she underwent a mastectomy. She missed just two weeks of work. That same year, she had her appendix removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor was embarrassed in 1989 after conservative Republicans in Arizona used a letter she had sent to support their claim that the United States is a \u201cChristian nation.\u201d The 1988 letter, which prompted some harsh criticism of O\u2019Connor by legal scholars, cited three Supreme Court rulings in which the nation\u2019s Christian heritage was discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connor said she regretted the letter\u2019s use in a political debate. \u201cIt was not my intention to express a personal view on the subject of the inquiry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funeral plans were not immediately available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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