Conversations with Outstanding Americans: Sandra Day O’Connor

Conversations with Outstanding Americans: Sandra Day O’Connor

Elected in 1981 as the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, Justice O’Connor has proved to be both a pragmatic, conservative voice and a coalition-builder. Her “swing vote” has often tilted major rulings.

January 28, 1997

By Robert Marquand, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

Sandra Day O’Conner inhabits one of the loftiest spots in American law. As the third-senior member of the Supreme Court, the former ranch girl from Arizona who used to “get up at 3 a.m. and be in the saddle by sunup,” as she puts it, has more than come a long way. But what Justice O’Connor wants today is more common sense in the interaction between law and ordinary people.

In a wide-ranging conversation with the Monitor, the practical minded O’Connor backs a number of reform ideas. She wants courts to not only seem more accessible, but to actually be so. She would be willing, for example, to allow people to serve on juries who have seen or heard news reports of a crime. (See comments at right.) Otherwise, “you get hear-nothing, see nothing people. Is that really a jury of your peers?” as she says one afternoon recently in her comfortable chambers. Likewise, she’s investing hope in new methods of conflict resolution that give people the feeling “they’ve been heard” by the justice system.

O’Connor, arguably the most influential woman in US government until last week, when Madeleine Albright became secretary of