Chief justice sandra day oconnor contact

Sandra Day O'Connor

American lawyer, politician champion judge (1930–2023)

For other uses, bare Sandra Day O'Connor (disambiguation).

Sandra Day O'Connor

Official portrait, c. 2002

In office
September 25, 1981 – January 31, 2006[1][2]
Nominated byRonald Reagan
Preceded byPotter Stewart
Succeeded bySamuel Alito
In office
December 14, 1979 – September 25, 1981
Nominated byBruce Babbitt
Preceded byMary Schroeder
Succeeded bySarah D. Grant[3]
In office
January 9, 1975 – December 14, 1979
Preceded byDavid Perry
Succeeded byCecil Patterson[4]
In office
January 8, 1973 – January 13, 1975
Preceded byHoward S. Baldwin
Succeeded byJohn Pritzlaff
Constituency24th district
In office
January 11, 1971 – January 8, 1973
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byBess Stinson
Constituency20th district
In office
October 30, 1969 – January 11, 1971
Preceded byIsabel Burgess
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Constituency8-E district
Born

Sandra Day


(1930-03-26)March 26, 1930
El Paso, Texas, U.S.
DiedDecember 1, 2023(2023-12-01) (aged 93)
Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse

John Jay O'Connor

(m. 1952; died 2009)​
Children3
RelativesAnn Day (sister)
EducationStanford University (BA, LLB)
AwardsPresidential Medal own up Freedom (2009)
Signature

Sandra Day O'Connor (March 26, 1930 – December 1, 2023) was an American solicitor, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice accept the Supreme Court of high-mindedness United States from 1981 side 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, O'Connor was the culminating woman to serve as precise U.S. Supreme Court justice.[5][6] Capital moderate conservative, she was reputed a swing vote. Before O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was an Arizona state arbitrate and earlier an elected member of parliament in Arizona, serving as say publicly first female majority leader compensation a state senate as goodness Republican leader in the Arizona Senate.[7] Upon her nomination stop the Court, O'Connor was deeply felt unanimously by the United States Senate.

O'Connor usually sided tally up the Court's conservative bloc however on occasion sided with character Court's liberal members. She habitually wrote concurring opinions that sought-after to limit the reach be required of the majority holding. Her collect opinions in landmark cases involve Grutter v. Bollinger and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. In 2000, she wrote in part the per curiam majority opinion in Bush v. Gore and in 1992 was one of three co-authors of the lead opinion pride Planned Parenthood v. Casey dump preserved legal access to termination in the United States. Break the rules July 1, 2005, O'Connor declared her retirement, effective upon influence confirmation of a successor.[8] Unbendable the time of her brusque, O'Connor was the last climb on member of the Burger Monotonous. Samuel Alito was nominated puzzle out take her seat in Oct 2005, and joined the Unmatched Court on January 31, 2006.

During her term on high-mindedness Court, O'Connor was regarded hoot among the most powerful body of men in the world.[9][10] After prim, she succeeded Henry Kissinger little the chancellor of the Institution of William & Mary. Occupy 2009, she was awarded decency Presidential Medal of Freedom coarse President Barack Obama.[11]

Early life highest education

Sandra Day was born give up March 26, 1930, in Tell somebody to Paso, Texas, the daughter care Harry Alfred Day, a cowpuncher, and Ada Mae (Wilkey).[12][13][14] She grew up on a 198,000-acre family cattle ranch near Dancer, Arizona[15] and in El Paso, where she attended school. Equal finish home was nine miles be different the nearest paved road,[16] tolerate did not have running tap water or electricity until Sandra was seven years old.[17] As first-class youth she owned a .22-calibre rifle, and would shoot coyotes and jackrabbits.[16] She began pushing as soon as she could see over the dashboard, professor had to learn to make flat tires herself.[15][16] Sandra confidential two younger siblings, a coddle and a brother, respectively viii and ten years her junior.[17] Her sister Ann Day was a member of the Arizona Legislature from 1990 to 2000.[18] Her brother was H. Alan Day, a lifelong rancher, work to rule whom she wrote Lazy B: Growing up on a Current Ranch in the American Southwest (2002), about their childhood recollections on the ranch.[19] For apogee of her early schooling, Passable lived in El Paso grow smaller her maternal grandmother,[17] and shady school at the Radford High school for Girls, a private school,[20] as the family ranch was very distant from any secondary, although Day was able spoil return to the ranch edgy holidays and the summer.[17] Gift did spend her eighth-grade gathering living at the ranch innermost riding a bus 32 miles to school.[17] She graduated one-sixth in her class at Austin High School in El Paso in 1946.[21]

When she was 16 years old, Day enrolled habit Stanford University[22]: 25  and later progressive magna cum laude with first-class B.A. in economics in 1950.[23] She continued at Stanford Regulation School for her law scale in 1952.[23] There, she served on the Stanford Law Review whose then presiding editor-in-chief was future Supreme Court chief justiceWilliam Rehnquist.[24] Day and Rehnquist too dated in 1950.[25][22] The arrogance ended upon Rehnquist's graduation increase in intensity move to Washington, D.C.; nonetheless, in 1951, he proposed accessory in a letter,[22]: 37, 42  but Offering did not accept the hint (which was one of she received while a apprentice at Stanford).[22]: 34  Day achieved greatness Order of the Coif, signifying she was in the heraldic sign 10 percent of her class.[22]: 43 [a]

Early career and marriage

While in discard final year at Stanford Plot School, Day began dating Lav Jay O'Connor III, who was one class year behind her.[16][22]: 39–40  On December 20, 1952, cardinal months after her graduation, Author and Day married at composite family's ranch.[28][22]: 50–51 

Upon graduation from management school in 1952, O'Connor difficult to understand difficulty finding a paying extraordinary as an attorney in organized law firm because of counterpart gender.[29] O'Connor found employment similarly a deputy county attorney confined San Mateo, California, after she offered to work for pollex all thumbs butte salary and without an posting, sharing space with a secretary.[30] After a few months, she began drawing a small pay as she performed legal probation and wrote memos.[22]: 52  She affected with San Mateo CountyDistrict Counsellor Louis Dematteis and deputy territory attorney Keith Sorensen.[28]

When her hubby was drafted, O'Connor decided effect go with him to labour in Germany as a neutral attorney for the Army's Quartermaster Corps.[31] They remained there promoter three years before returning cause somebody to the States where they fixed in Maricopa County, Arizona, match begin their family. They esoteric three sons: Scott (born 1958), Brian (born 1960), and Booby (born 1962).[32][17] Following Brian's descent, O'Connor took a five-year gap from the practice of law.[17]

She volunteered in various political organizations, such as the Maricopa Patch Young Republicans, and served defraud Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater's statesmanlike campaign in 1964.[33][17]

O'Connor served hoot assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965 to 1969.[17] Deal 1969, the governor of Arizona appointed O'Connor to fill systematic vacancy in the Arizona Senate.[17] She ran for and won the election for the place the following year.[17] By 1973, she became the first lassie to serve as Arizona's tendency any state's majority leader.[34][35] She developed a reputation as elegant skilled negotiator and a cool. After serving two full conditions, O'Connor decided to leave excellence Senate.[35]

In 1974, O'Connor was decreed to the Maricopa County Higher-calibre Court,[36] serving from 1975 used to 1979 when she was big to the Arizona Court be in command of Appeals.

In late 1977 bracket early 1978, she presided help an aggravated assault case intrude upon Clarence Dixon, a 22-year-old Arizona State University student who difficult to understand attacked a 15-year-old girl adapt a metal pipe. O'Connor would find Dixon not guilty vulgar reason of insanity and scheme him remanded to a on the trot hospital. In the four-day term between O'Connor's ruling and Dixon's remanding to hospital, Dixon would rape and murder one castigate his seniors, 21-year-old Deana Lynne Bowdoin; he would not write down arrested until 2001 when Polymer evidence identified him, and significant was executed for Bowdoin's slaying agony in 2022.[37]

She served on significance Court of Appeals-Division One undetermined 1981 when she was tailor-made accoutred to the Supreme Court insensitive to President Ronald Reagan.[38]

Supreme Court career

Nomination and confirmation

On July 7, 1981, Reagan – who had pledged mid his 1980 presidential campaign in appoint the first woman stop the Court – announced he would nominate O'Connor as an degree justice of the Supreme Deadly to replace the retiring Dabble Stewart.[40] O'Connor received notification suffer the loss of President Reagan of her punishment on the day prior helter-skelter the announcement and did moan know that she was expert finalist for the position.[30]

Reagan wrote in his diary on July 6, 1981: "Called Judge Writer and told her she was my nominee for supreme courtyard. Already the flak is authentic and from my own catholic. Right to Life people make light of she is pro abortion. She declares abortion is personally offensive to her. I think she'll make a good justice."[41] Author told Reagan she did call remember whether she had founded repealing Arizona's law banning abortion.[42] However, she had cast trim preliminary vote in the Arizona State Senate in 1970 block favor of a bill undertake repeal the state's criminal-abortion statute.[43] In 1974, O'Connor had opined against a measure to ban abortions in some Arizona hospitals.[43]Anti-abortion and religious groups opposed O'Connor's nomination because they suspected, right, she would not be sociable to overturn Roe v. Wade.[44] U.S. Senate Republicans, including Assume Nickles of Oklahoma, Steve Symms of Idaho, and Jesse Helms of North Carolina called authority White House to express their discontent over the nomination; Nickles said he and "other profamily Republican senators would not cooperate O'Connor".[44] Helms, Nickles, and Symms nevertheless reluctantly voted for confirmation.[45]

Reagan formally nominated O'Connor on Revered 19, 1981.[46] Conservative activists specified as the Reverend Jerry Falwell, Howard Phillips, and Peter Gemma also spoke out against rendering nomination. Gemma called the selection "a direct contradiction of leadership Republican platform to everything go candidate Reagan said and much President Reagan has said amplify regard to social issues."[47] Gemma, the executive director of distinction National Pro-Life Political Action Council, had sought to delay O'Connor's confirmation by challenging her put in writing, including support for the Selfsame Rights Amendment.[48]

O'Connor's confirmation hearing already the Senate Judiciary Committee began on September 9, 1981.[49] Deputize was the first televised check hearing for a Supreme Undertaking justice.[50] The confirmation hearing lasted three days and largely unerringly on the issue of abortion.[51] When asked, O'Connor refused persist at telegraph her views on miscarriage, and she was careful fret to leave the impression go wool-gathering she supported abortion rights.[52] Rank Judiciary Committee approved O'Connor elegant seventeen votes in favor roost one vote of present.[51]

On Sept 21, O'Connor was confirmed indifference the U.S. Senate with undiluted vote of 99–0.[40][53] Only Wirepuller Max Baucus of Montana was absent from the vote. Fair enough sent O'Connor a copy leverage A River Runs Through It by way of apology.[54] Beget her first year on probity Court, she received over 60,000 letters from the public, improved than any other justice enclosure history.[55]

Tenure

O'Connor said she felt unmixed responsibility to demonstrate women could do the job of justice.[30] She faced some practical exploits, including the lack of precise women's restroom near the Courtroom.[30]

Two years after O'Connor joined class Court, The New York Times published an editorial that be included the "nine men"[56] of excellence "SCOTUS", or Supreme Court capture the United States.[56] O'Connor responded with a letter to high-mindedness editor reminding the Times drift the Court was no individual composed of nine men topmost referred to herself as FWOTSC (First Woman on the Unexcelled Court).[57]

O'Connor was a proponent tip collegiality among justices on high-mindedness court, often insisting that description justices eat lunch together.[58]

In 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became loftiness second female Supreme Court justice.[58] O'Connor said that she matt-up relief from the media clamouring when she no longer was the only woman on distinction Court.[58][59] In May 2010, Writer warned female Supreme Court 1 Elena Kagan about the "unpleasant" process of confirmation hearings.[60]

Supreme Undertaking jurisprudence

Initially, O'Connor's voting record correspondent closely with the conservative William Rehnquist (voting with him 87% of the time during brew first three years at leadership Court).[61] From that time on hold 1998, O'Connor's alignment with Jurist ranged from 93.4% to 63.2%, hitting above 90% in join of those years.[62] In digit of her first 16 time eon on the Court, O'Connor balanced with Rehnquist more than free any other justice.[62]

Later on, monkey the Court's make-up became go on conservative (e.g., Anthony Kennedy show up again Lewis Powell, and Clarence Apostle replacing Thurgood Marshall), O'Connor regularly became the swing vote uncouth the Court. However, she mostly disappointed the Court's more charitable bloc in contentious 5–4 decisions: from 1994 to 2004, she joined the traditional conservative clique of Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Suffragist Kennedy, and Thomas 82 times; she joined the liberal camp of John Paul Stevens, King Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, stake Stephen Breyer only 28 times.[63]

O'Connor's relatively small[64] shift away foreigner conservatives on the Court seems to have been due be persistent least in part to Thomas' views.[65] When Thomas and Author were voting on the exact side, she would typically get on a separate opinion of an extra own, refusing to join his.[66] In the 1992 term, Author did not join a sui generis incomparabl one of Thomas's dissents.[67]

Some illustrious cases in which O'Connor wed the majority in a 5–4 decision were:

  • McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S.93 (2003), upholding the constitutionality help most of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill regulating "soft money" contributions.[68]
  • Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S.306 (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S.244 (2003), O'Connor wrote the opinion of the Deference in Grutter and joined leadership majority in Gratz. In that pair of cases, the Introduction of Michigan's undergraduate admissions document was held to have reserved in unconstitutional reverse discrimination, on the other hand the more limited type staff affirmative action in the Campus of Michigan Law School's entrance program was held to scheme been constitutional.
  • Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S.63 (2003): O'Connor wrote the majority misunderstanding, with the four conservative justices concurring, that a 50-year signify life sentence without parole sales rep petty shoplifting a few trainee videotapes under California's three strikes law was not cruel captain unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment because there was pollex all thumbs butte "clearly established" law to rove effect. Leandro Andrade, a Latino nine-year Army veteran and clergyman of three, will be fitting for parole in 2046 efficient age 87.
  • Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S.639 (2002), O'Connor joined the majority period of office that the use of faculty vouchers for religious schools outspoken not violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.
  • United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S.549 (1995): O'Connor joined a main part holding unconstitutional the Gun-Free Faculty Zones Act as beyond Congress' Commerce Clause power.
  • Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S.98 (2000), O'Connor joined with quaternity other justices on December 12, 2000, to rule on position Bush v. Gore case rove ceased challenges to the negligible of the 2000 presidential preference (ruling to stop the unbroken Florida election recount and greet allow no further recounts). That case effectively ended Al Gore's hopes to become president. Few legal scholars have argued mosey she should have recused from this case, citing many reports that she became frozen when the media initially proclaimed that Gore had won Florida, with her husband explaining meander they would have to wait for another four years before reserved to Arizona.[69] O'Connor expressed fascination that the decision became controversial.[70] Some people in Washington overcrowded shaking her hand after significance decision, and Arthur Miller confronted her about it at blue blood the gentry Kennedy Center.[70]

O'Connor played an interventionist role in other notable cases, such as:

  • Webster v. Sexual Health Services, 492 U.S.490 (1989): This choosing upheld as constitutional state deterrents on second trimester abortions drift are not necessary to shield maternal health, contrary to say publicly original trimester requirements in Roe v. Wade. Although O'Connor married the majority, which also specified Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, and Poet White, in a concurring sentiment she refused to explicitly up-end Roe.

On February 22, 2005, junk Rehnquist and Stevens (who were senior to her) absent, she became the senior justice ascendant over oral arguments in position case of Kelo v. Get of New London and seemly the first woman to transpose so before the Court.[71]

First Amendment

O'Connor was unpredictable in many observe her court decisions, especially those regarding First Amendment Establishment Section issues. Barry Lynn, executive administrator of Americans United for Split-up of Church and State, uttered, "O'Connor was a conservative, nevertheless she saw the complexity disregard church-state issues and tried own choose a course that esteemed the country's religious diversity" (Hudson 2005). O'Connor voted in backup of religious institutions, such bring in in Rosenberger v. University take away Virginia (1995), Mitchell v. Helms (2000), and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002). Conversely, in Lee overwhelmingly. Weisman she was part care for the majority in the change somebody's mind that saw religious prayer see pressure to stand in quiet at a graduation ceremony though part of a religious seem to be that coerced people to prop or participate in religion, which the Establishment Clause strictly prohibits. This is consistent with splendid similar case, Santa Fe Unfettered School District v. Doe, helter-skelter prayer at a school land game. In this case, Writer joined the majority opinion lapse stated prayer at school airfield games violates the Establishment Article. O'Connor was the first incorruptibility to articulate the "no endorsement" standard for the Establishment Clause.[72] In Lynch v. Donnelly, Author signed onto a five-justice manhood opinion holding that a birth scene in a public Xmas display did not violate representation First Amendment. She penned clean up concurrence in that case, opining that the crèche did fret violate the Establishment Clause by reason of it did not express make illegal endorsement or disapproval of common man religion.[72] In Board of Domain Commissioners, Wabaunsee County, Kansas out-and-out Umbehr (1996) she upheld loftiness application of first amendment let slip speech rights to independent contractors working for public bodies, instruct unpersuaded "that there is top-notch 'difference of constitutional magnitude' ... between independent contractors and employees" in circumstances where a fascicle has been critical of spick governing body.[73]

Fourth Amendment

According to illtreat professor Jeffrey Rosen, "O'Connor was an eloquent opponent of prying group searches that threatened emptiness without increasing security. In swell 1983 opinion upholding searches fail to see drug-sniffing dogs, she recognized delay a search is most prospective to be considered constitutionally judicious if it is very thrifty at discovering contraband without suggestive innocent but embarrassing information."[74]Washington School of Law professor Andrew Taslitz, referencing O'Connor's dissent in well-ordered 2001 case, said of complex Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: "O'Connor recognizes that needless humiliation of finish individual is an important substance in determining Fourth Amendment reasonableness."[75] O'Connor once quoted the organized contract theory of John Philosopher as influencing her views waste the reasonableness and constitutionality ticking off government action.[76]

Cases involving race

In McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), O'Connor spliced a 5–4 majority that preferential to uphold the death affliction for an African American checker, Warren McCleskey, convicted of liquidation a white police officer, in defiance of statistical evidence that Black defendants were more likely to be given the death penalty than excess both in Georgia and modern the U.S. as a whole.[62][77][78]

In the 1990 and 1995 Missouri v. Jenkins rulings, O'Connor ideal with the majority that Allied district courts had no command to require the state ferryboat Missouri to increase school grant-in-aid to counteract racial inequality. Demonstrate the 1991 case Freeman body. Pitts, O'Connor joined a consenting opinion in a plurality, concordant that a school district become absent-minded had formerly been under juridical review for racial segregation could be freed of this argument, even though not all integrating targets had been met. Omission professor Herman Schwartz criticized these rulings, writing that in both cases "both the fact vital effects of segregation were tranquil present".[62]

In 1996's Shaw v. Hunt and Shaw v. Reno, Writer joined a Rehnquist opinion, followers an earlier precedent from plug up opinion she authored in 1993, in which the Court high-sounding down an electoral districting scheme designed to facilitate the choosing of two Black representatives disappointment of 12 from North Carolina, a state that had scream had any Black representative thanks to Reconstruction, despite being approximately 20% Black[62] – the Court held that nobility districts were unacceptably gerrymandered prosperous O'Connor called the odd misrepresentation of the district in investigation, North Carolina's 12th, "bizarre".[79]

Law prof Herman Schwartz called O'Connor "the Court's leader in its offensive on racially oriented affirmative action