O’Connor supports capital punishment

WASHINGTON (AP)-Sandra Day O’Connor, in the second round of Senate committee questioning on her Supreme Court nomination, said today she personally favors the death penalty and opposes mandatory school busing. In a tense exchange with Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, she also asserted that President Reagan had not asked for any commitments in exchange for the nomination. “I was not asked to make any commitments . . . about what I would do or how I would resolve any issue to come before the court,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee. THE CONSERVATIVE Grassley twice asked her to say that she had not been asked for any commitments. She said she feels school busing to achieve integration can be “disruptive” to children, citing her own long treks to school when she was a child. “I just think that isn’t a system that often is terribly beneficial to the child,” she said of school busing. She also noted that during her tenure in the Arizona Senate she voted for a resolution urging action “at the federal level” that would “terminate the use of forced busing in desegregation cases.” Mrs. O’Connor also said that while in the state Senate she had voted in favor of a death penalty bill. “I felt that it was an appropriate vote then, and I have not changed my views,” she told Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. She helped draft the bill to respond to the Supreme Court decision striking down death penalty laws in many states. THE 51-YEAR-OLD Arizona appeals court judge also strongly defended her