Sandra day oconnor biography video

American lawyer, politician and judge (1930–2023)

For conquer uses, see Sandra Day O'Connor (disambiguation).

Sandra Day O'Connor (March 26, 1930 – December 1, 2023) was an American attorney, politician, and pass judgement who served as an associate justice of rendering Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, Author was the first woman to serve as fastidious U.S. Supreme Court justice.^[5][6] A moderate conservative, she was considered a swing vote. Before O'Connor's incumbency on the Court, she was an Arizona position judge and earlier an elected legislator in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader time off a state senate as the Republican leader case the Arizona Senate.^[7] Upon her nomination to greatness Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the Affiliated States Senate.

O'Connor usually sided with the Court's conservative bloc but on occasion sided with depiction Court's liberal members. She often wrote concurring opinions that sought to limit the reach of illustriousness majority holding. Her majority opinions in landmark cases include Grutter v. Bollinger and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. In 2000, she wrote in part the per curiam majority opinion in Bush v. Gore streak in 1992 was one of three co-authors be advisable for the lead opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that preserved legal access to abortion in significance United States. On July 1, 2005, O'Connor proclaimed her retirement, effective upon the confirmation of clean successor.^[8] At the time of her death, Author was the last living member of the Hamburger Court. Samuel Alito was nominated to take be involved with seat in October 2005, and joined the Unequalled Court on January 31, 2006.

During her honour on the Court, O'Connor was regarded as halfway the most powerful women in the world.^[9][10] Equate retiring, she succeeded Henry Kissinger as the chief of the College of William & Mary. Run to ground 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal disrespect Freedom by President Barack Obama.^[11]

Early life and education

Sandra Day was born on March 26, 1930, family unit El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Harry King Day, a rancher, and Ada Mae (Wilkey).^[12][13][14] She grew up on a 198,000-acre family cattle recite unfold near Duncan, Arizona^[15] and in El Paso, locale she attended school. Her home was nine miles from the nearest paved road,^[16] and did groan have running water or electricity until Sandra was seven years old.^[17] As a youth she illustrious a .22-caliber rifle, and would shoot coyotes be proof against jackrabbits.^[16] She began driving as soon as she could see over the dashboard, and had strengthen learn to change flat tires herself.^[15][16] Sandra abstruse two younger siblings, a sister and a religious, respectively eight and ten years her junior.^[17] Tea break sister Ann Day was a member of primacy Arizona Legislature from 1990 to 2000.^[18] Her sibling was H. Alan Day, a lifelong rancher, pick whom she wrote Lazy B: Growing up drain a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest (2002), about their childhood experiences on the ranch.^[19] Bolster most of her early schooling, Day lived false El Paso with her maternal grandmother,^[17] and forged school at the Radford School for Girls, copperplate private school,^[20] as the family ranch was unpick distant from any school, although Day was unpardonable to return to the ranch for holidays attend to the summer.^[17] Day did spend her eighth-grade best living at the ranch and riding a motorbus 32 miles to school.^[17] She graduated sixth absorb her class at Austin High School in Bore Paso in 1946.^[21]

When she was 16 years a choice of, Day enrolled at Stanford University^[22]: 25 and later calibrated magna cum laude with a B.A. in banking in 1950.^[23] She continued at Stanford Law Nursery school for her law degree in 1952.^[23] There, she served on the Stanford Law Review whose bolster presiding editor-in-chief was future Supreme Court chief justiceWilliam Rehnquist.^[24] Day and Rehnquist also dated in 1950.^[25][22] The relationship ended upon Rehnquist's graduation and pass to Washington, D.C.; however, in 1951, he anticipated marriage in a letter,^{[22]: 37, 42} but Day did put together accept the proposal (which was one of quaternity she received while a student at Stanford).^[22]: 34 Fair achieved the Order of the Coif, indicating she was in the top 10 percent of disallow class.^{[22]: 43 [a]}

Early career and marriage

While in her final period at Stanford Law School, Day began dating Bog Jay O'Connor III, who was one class harvest behind her.^{[16][22]: 39–40} On December 20, 1952, six months after her graduation, O'Connor and Day married squabble her family's ranch.^{[28][22]: 50–51}

Upon graduation from law school flat 1952, O'Connor had difficulty finding a paying helpful as an attorney in a law firm as of her gender.^[29] O'Connor found employment as elegant deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California, afterwards she offered to work for no salary put forward without an office, sharing space with a secretary.^[30] After a few months, she began drawing straight small salary as she performed legal research instruction wrote memos.^[22]: 52 She worked with San Mateo CountyDistrict Attorney Louis Dematteis and deputy district attorney Keith Sorensen.^[28]

When her husband was drafted, O'Connor decided say nice things about go with him to work in Germany laugh a civilian attorney for the Army's Quartermaster Corps.^[31] They remained there for three years before frequent to the States where they settled in Hokan County, Arizona, to begin their family. They abstruse three sons: Scott (born 1958), Brian (born 1960), and Jay (born 1962).^[32][17] Following Brian's birth, Author took a five-year hiatus from the practice penalty law.^[17]

She volunteered in various political organizations, such restructuring the Maricopa County Young Republicans, and served pride Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964.^[33][17]

O'Connor served as assistant Attorney General of Arizona cause the collapse of 1965 to 1969.^[17] In 1969, the governor addict Arizona appointed O'Connor to fill a vacancy joy the Arizona Senate.^[17] She ran for and won the election for the seat the following year.^[17] By 1973, she became the first woman prospect serve as Arizona's or any state's majority leader.^[34][35] She developed a reputation as a skilled arbiter and a moderate. After serving two full terminology conditions, O'Connor decided to leave the Senate.^[35]

In 1974, Writer was appointed to the Maricopa County Superior Court,^[36] serving from 1975 to 1979 when she was elevated to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

In late 1977 and early 1978, she presided completed an aggravated assault case against Clarence Dixon, graceful 22-year-old Arizona State University student who had insincere a 15-year-old girl with a metal pipe. Writer would find Dixon not guilty by reason many insanity and have him remanded to a affirm hospital. In the four-day period between O'Connor's pledge and Dixon's remanding to hospital, Dixon would plummet and murder one of his seniors, 21-year-old Deana Lynne Bowdoin; he would not be arrested imminent 2001 when DNA evidence identified him, and bankruptcy was executed for Bowdoin's murder in 2022.^[37]

She served on the Court of Appeals-Division One until 1981 when she was appointed to the Supreme Deference by President Ronald Reagan.^[38]

Supreme Court career

Nomination and confirmation

On July 7, 1981, Reagan – who had pledged close to his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the culminating woman to the Court – announced he would move O'Connor as an associate justice of the Peerless Court to replace the retiring Potter Stewart.^[40] Author received notification from President Reagan of her rendezvous on the day prior to the announcement delighted did not know that she was a finalist for the position.^[30]

Reagan wrote in his diary have a look at July 6, 1981: "Called Judge O'Connor and try her she was my nominee for supreme pay court to. Already the flak is starting and from leaden own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro abortion. She declares abortion is by oneself repugnant to her. I think she'll make precise good justice."^[41] O'Connor told Reagan she did remote remember whether she had supported repealing Arizona's batter banning abortion.^[42] However, she had cast a basic vote in the Arizona State Senate in 1970 in favor of a bill to repeal picture state's criminal-abortion statute.^[43] In 1974, O'Connor had opined against a measure to prohibit abortions in gross Arizona hospitals.^[43]Anti-abortion and religious groups opposed O'Connor's recommendation because they suspected, correctly, she would not hide willing to overturn Roe v. Wade.^[44] U.S. Governing body Republicans, including Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Steve Symms of Idaho, and Jesse Helms of North Carolina called the White House to express their disaffection over the nomination; Nickles said he and "other profamily Republican senators would not support O'Connor".^[44] Helms, Nickles, and Symms nevertheless reluctantly voted for confirmation.^[45]

Reagan formally nominated O'Connor on August 19, 1981.^[46] Right-wing activists such as the Reverend Jerry Falwell, Player Phillips, and Peter Gemma also spoke out overwhelm the nomination. Gemma called the nomination "a funnel contradiction of the Republican platform to everything put off candidate Reagan said and even President Reagan has said in regard to social issues."^[47] Gemma, leadership executive director of the National Pro-Life Political Work stoppage Committee, had sought to delay O'Connor's confirmation invitation challenging her record, including support for the Level Rights Amendment.^[48]

O'Connor's confirmation hearing before the Senate Governance Committee began on September 9, 1981.^[49] It was the first televised confirmation hearing for a Principal Court justice.^[50] The confirmation hearing lasted three cycle and largely focused on the issue of abortion.^[51] When asked, O'Connor refused to telegraph her views on abortion, and she was careful not give your backing to leave the impression that she supported abortion rights.^[52] The Judiciary Committee approved O'Connor with seventeen votes in favor and one vote of present.^[51]

On Sept 21, O'Connor was confirmed by the U.S. Legislature with a vote of 99–0.^[40][53] Only Senator Focal point Baucus of Montana was absent from the suffrage. He sent O'Connor a copy of A Geyser Runs Through It by way of apology.^[54] Stop in midsentence her first year on the Court, she stodgy over 60,000 letters from the public, more best any other justice in history.^[55]

Tenure

O'Connor said she mat a responsibility to demonstrate women could do nobility job of justice.^[30] She faced some practical doings, including the lack of a women's restroom to all intents and purposes the Courtroom.^[30]

Two years after O'Connor joined the Press one`s suit with, The New York Times published an editorial zigzag mentioned the "nine men"^[56] of the "SCOTUS", hottest Supreme Court of the United States.^[56] O'Connor responded with a letter to the editor reminding depiction Times that the Court was no longer unagitated of nine men and referred to herself thanks to FWOTSC (First Woman on the Supreme Court).^[57]

O'Connor was a proponent of collegiality among justices on representation court, often insisting that the justices eat tiffin together.^[58]

In 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the subordinate female Supreme Court justice.^[58] O'Connor said that she felt relief from the media clamor when she no longer was the only woman on loftiness Court.^[58][59] In May 2010, O'Connor warned female Greatest Court nominee Elena Kagan about the "unpleasant" proceeding of confirmation hearings.^[60]

Supreme Court jurisprudence

Initially, O'Connor's voting take pictures of aligned closely with the conservative William Rehnquist (voting with him 87% of the time during congregate first three years at the Court).^[61] From go wool-gathering time until 1998, O'Connor's alignment with Rehnquist planned from 93.4% to 63.2%, hitting above 90% satisfy three of those years.^[62] In nine of in trade first 16 years on the Court, O'Connor preferential with Rehnquist more than with any other justice.^[62]

Later on, as the Court's make-up became more colonel blimp (e.g., Anthony Kennedy replacing Lewis Powell, and Clarence Thomas replacing Thurgood Marshall), O'Connor often became honourableness swing vote on the Court. However, she most of the time disappointed the Court's more liberal bloc in bellicose 5–4 decisions: from 1994 to 2004, she united the traditional conservative bloc of Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Thomas 82 times; she wedded conjugal the liberal bloc of John Paul Stevens, Painter Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer single 28 times.^[63]

O'Connor's relatively small^[64] shift away from conservatives on the Court seems to have been fitting at least in part to Thomas' views.^[65] Like that which Thomas and O'Connor were voting on the corresponding side, she would typically write a separate picture of her own, refusing to join his.^[66] Behave the 1992 term, O'Connor did not join undiluted single one of Thomas's dissents.^[67]

Some notable cases captive which O'Connor joined the majority in a 5–4 decision were:

• McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S.93 (2003), upholding greatness constitutionality of most of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reckoning regulating "soft money" contributions.^[68]
• Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S.306 (2003) turf Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S.244 (2003), O'Connor wrote the guidance of the Court in Grutter and joined leadership majority in Gratz. In this pair of cases, the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions program was held to have engaged in unconstitutional reverse predilection, but the more limited type of affirmative motion in the University of Michigan Law School's entrance program was held to have been constitutional.
• Lockyer altogether. Andrade, 538 U.S.63 (2003): O'Connor wrote the majority opinion, awaken the four conservative justices concurring, that a 50-year to life sentence without parole for petty thieving a few children's videotapes under California's three strikes law was not cruel and unusual punishment answerable to the Eighth Amendment because there was no "clearly established" law to that effect. Leandro Andrade, fine Latino nine-year Army veteran and father of tierce, will be eligible for parole in 2046 go on doing age 87.
• Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S.639 (2002), O'Connor joined class majority holding that the use of school vouchers for religious schools did not violate the Culminating Amendment's Establishment Clause.
• United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S.549 (1995): Writer joined a majority holding unconstitutional the Gun-Free An educational institution Zones Act as beyond Congress' Commerce Clause power.
• Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S.98 (2000), O'Connor joined with four different justices on December 12, 2000, to rule back copy the Bush v. Gore case that ceased challenges to the results of the 2000 presidential preference (ruling to stop the ongoing Florida election present and to allow no further recounts). This crate effectively ended Al Gore's hopes to become the man. Some legal scholars have argued that she be required to have recused herself from this case, citing a handful reports that she became upset when the routes initially announced that Gore had won Florida, break her husband explaining that they would have hold forth wait another four years before retiring to Arizona.^[69] O'Connor expressed surprise that the decision became controversial.^[70] Some people in Washington stopped shaking her shield after the decision, and Arthur Miller confronted penetrate about it at the Kennedy Center.^[70]

O'Connor played highrise important role in other notable cases, such as:

• Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S.490 (1989): This resolving upheld as constitutional state restrictions on second trimester abortions that are not necessary to protect affectionate health, contrary to the original trimester requirements barred enclosure Roe v. Wade. Although O'Connor joined the main part, which also included Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, and Poet White, in a concurring opinion she refused covenant explicitly overturn Roe.

On February 22, 2005, with Jurist and Stevens (who were senior to her) out, she became the senior justice presiding over uttered arguments in the case of Kelo v. Power point of New London and becoming the first eve to do so before the Court.^[71]

First Amendment

O'Connor was unpredictable in many of her court decisions, self-same those regarding First Amendment Establishment Clause issues. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Break-up of Church and State, said, "O'Connor was neat as a pin conservative, but she saw the complexity of church-state issues and tried to choose a course make certain respected the country's religious diversity" (Hudson 2005). Author voted in favor of religious institutions, such chimpanzee in Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995), Mitchell v. Helms (2000), and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002). Conversely, in Lee v. Weisman she was property of the majority in the case that proverb religious prayer and pressure to stand in quietness at a graduation ceremony as part of straight religious act that coerced people to support manage participate in religion, which the Establishment Clause firmly prohibits. This is consistent with a similar pencil case, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, in prayer at a school football game. In that case, O'Connor joined the majority opinion that described prayer at school football games violates the Creation Clause. O'Connor was the first justice to preach the "no endorsement" standard for the Establishment Clause.^[72] In Lynch v. Donnelly, O'Connor signed onto a-one five-justice majority opinion holding that a nativity outlook in a public Christmas display did not contravene the First Amendment. She penned a concurrence discern that case, opining that the crèche did gather together violate the Establishment Clause because it did remote express an endorsement or disapproval of any religion.^[72] In Board of County Commissioners, Wabaunsee County, River v Umbehr (1996) she upheld the application care first amendment free speech rights to independent contractors working for public bodies, being unpersuaded "that adjacent to is a 'difference of constitutional magnitude' ... halfway independent contractors and employees" in circumstances where a-ok contractor has been critical of a governing body.^[73]

Fourth Amendment

According to law professor Jeffrey Rosen, "O'Connor was an eloquent opponent of intrusive group searches desert threatened privacy without increasing security. In a 1983 opinion upholding searches by drug-sniffing dogs, she established that a search is most likely to pull up considered constitutionally reasonable if it is very subjugate at discovering contraband without revealing innocent but embarrassing information."^[74]Washington College of Law professor Andrew Taslitz, referencing O'Connor's dissent in a 2001 case, said endorse her Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: "O'Connor recognizes that dispensable humiliation of an individual is an important norm in determining Fourth Amendment reasonableness."^[75] O'Connor once quoted the social contract theory of John Locke though influencing her views on the reasonableness and constitutionality of government action.^[76]

Cases involving race

In McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), O'Connor joined a 5–4 majority that established to uphold the death penalty for an Somebody American man, Warren McCleskey, convicted of killing organized white police officer, despite statistical evidence that Grimy defendants were more likely to receive the grip penalty than others both in Georgia and break off the U.S. as a whole.^[62][77][78]

In the 1990 lecturer 1995 Missouri v. Jenkins rulings, O'Connor voted shrink the majority that Federal district courts had negation authority to require the state of Missouri abut increase school funding to counteract racial inequality. Clod the 1991 case Freeman v. Pitts, O'Connor married a concurring opinion in a plurality, agreeing rove a school district that had formerly been inferior to judicial review for racial segregation could be discernibly of this review, even though not all integrating targets had been met. Law professor Herman Schwartz criticized these rulings, writing that in both cases "both the fact and effects of segregation were still present".^[62]

In 1996's Shaw v. Hunt and Shaw v. Reno, O'Connor joined a Rehnquist opinion, multitude an earlier precedent from an opinion she authored in 1993, in which the Court struck put in at an electoral districting plan designed to facilitate dignity election of two Black representatives out of 12 from North Carolina, a state that had beg for had any Black representative since Reconstruction, despite personality approximately 20% Black^[62] – the Court held that the districts were unacceptably gerrymandered and O'Connor called the comical shape of the district in question, North Carolina's 12th, "bizarre".^[79]