Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court, died on Friday, according to an official announcement from the US Supreme Court.
The former judge, who left office in 2006, died at the age of 93 at her home in Phoenix, Arizona.
O’Connor suffered from dementia, which caused her to retire from public life in 2018, and a respiratory disease.
The judge became known for playing a moderate role on a deeply divided court, having demonstrated a preference for pragmatism over ideology and refusing to be labeled by left or right.
O’Connor was considered the most powerful woman in the United States, having had both supporters and critics during her nearly 25 years in office.
The former judge never wanted to be seen as the only woman in the courtroom. “The power I wield in the courtroom depends on the strength of my arguments, not on my gender,” he said at a 1990 University of Washington conference.
A moderate Republican, she was nominated in 1981 by Ronald Reagan, who made good on his campaign promise to nominate a woman to one of the first Supreme Court vacancies during his term, despite criticism from conservatives, who pointed out that O’Connor had no experience had. federal judiciary, and liberals, concerned about the judge’s commitment to feminist issues.
O’Connor emerged as a “swing voter”, often breaking ties that had stalled after Conservative-Liberal votes, and on several key occasions helping secure a Liberal majority.
Richard Lazarus, who prepared lawyers to confront judges when he taught at Georgetown University, looked to her as a reference. “When Judge O’Connor asks a question during oral argument, any attorney would do well to answer fully, pause for a moment, and look at her, because nothing is more important to you than making sure you have addressed her concerns .”, he said. The Washington Post in 2004.
O’Connor’s reputation as a moderator and coalition builder greatly increased her influence on a bench so divided over central legal philosophy.
The judge proved to be the decisive vote in major cases upholding the government’s neutrality toward religion, including a 2005 ruling that it was unconstitutional to display the Ten Commandments in various courtrooms.
“Allowing the government to be a potential mouthpiece for competing religious ideas risks the kind of division that could easily result in the suppression of rival beliefs,” he wrote in a joint opinion.
The position he held for years at the center of the court was one that few subsequent justices embraced as appointments to the court became increasingly partisan.
Sandra Day was born on March 26, 1930 in El Paso, Texas and grew up on her parents’ farm in southeastern Arizona. At the age of seven he learned to drive a car, and by the age of eight he already knew how to shoot a shotgun and ride a horse.
He later attended the prestigious Stanford University where he majored in economics, which later sparked his interest in law.
In 1952, she married a college friend, John Jay O’Connor, and served as assistant attorney general of Arizona from 1965 to 1969.
After leaving the Supreme Court in 2006, in part because of her husband’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Sandra Day O’Connor founded iCivis in 2009 to teach civics.
Source: DN
