As the first female Supreme Court Justice and the first female state majority leader, Justice O’Connor’s story has inspired many journalists, authors, cartoonists, and groups to celebrate her experience. This catalog explores the media coverage she received throughout her career.
NEW ORLEANS (UPI) – Arguing the quality of American justice is at stake, Chief Justice Warren Burger is asking Congress to creat e a new federal court to decide some of the Supreme Court’s cases. Burger said the flow of cases is so overwhelming the court is threatened with a ” breakdown of the system – or of some of the justices.” He said “patchwork remedies” cannot solve the problem. “It is the most important single, immediate problem facing the judicial branch ,” Burger declared. Denying he was “crying wolf,” the nation’ s top DAI LY jurist recommended setting up a temporary panel of judges to settle conflicting rulings among the circuit courts of appeal, and perhaps disputes over federal statutes. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who also addressed the American Bar Association’s annual midwinter meeting Sunday, made a similar proposal for a new court. “There is no one single, permanent solution,” O’Connor said. “Each time the court’s caseload increases, congressional action is necessary to make some significant change in the court’s jurisdiction or its procedures to reduce the numbers. It’s been 58 years since the last major changes.” Burger’s proposal, made in his annual State of the Judiciary address, was the first time he has endorsed such a major change to reduce the court’s case burden – a topic that eight of the nine justices have spoken about publicly since last summer. Proposals for a new judicial layer between the appeals courts and the Supreme Court have been floated
Justice O’Connor: A First Term Appraisal
Robert E. Riggs*
INTRODUCTION
The appointment of Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to the United States Supreme Court was one of the most widely-ac claimed acts of the new Reagan administration. Not yet six months into his term of office, the President fulfilled a campaign promise to nominate a woman to fill one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in his administration.1 The nomination was praised by women’s groups because she was a woman,2 by Republicans because of her sterling political credentials,3 by law yers because of her solid legal background,• by Senators because of her alert, self-possessed responses at the nomination hear ings,11 and even by Democrats because, “If you have to have a Republican on the court… she’s about the best we could hope for.”6 The only discordant notes came from the far right, where
Professor of Law, Brigham Young University. B.A., 1952, M.A., 1953, University of Arizona; Ph.D., 1955, University of Illinois; LL.B., 1963, University of Arizona. The author wishes to acknowledge the research assistance of Garry B. Wilmore.
N.Y. Times, July 8, 1981, at Al, col. 4; N.Y. Times, Oct. 15, 1980, at Al, coL 1.
N.Y. Times, July 8, 1981, at Al, col. 4; The Nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor of Arizona to Serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: Hearings Before the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 278-80 (1981) (statement of Kathy Wilson, National Women’s Political
O’Connor stays quiet during court abortion arguments
WASHINGTON (UPI) – With the issue of abortion under consideration in the current Supreme Court term, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is staying as quiet about her views on the subject as she did at confirmation hearings. Usually quick with questions, Mrs. O’Connor, 52, was silent during the first 35 minutes of oral arguments Tuesday. The first woman ever on the high court, Mrs. O’Connor took her seat in September 1981. Tuesday’s three-hour argument was the first she has heard on the abortion question. During Senate confirmation hearings, she steadfastly refused to say if she would repudiate the court’s historic 1973 decision legalizing abortion. . Her nomination to the court by President Reagan was warmly received in most quarters, but abortion opponents criticized her stand on the issue during her time as an Arizona legislator. Although she said abortion personally offends her, Mrs. O’Connor told senators she would not oppose allowing abortions to save the woman’s life and “possibly” for other reasons. In its 1973 ruling, the Supreme Court said protecting the woman’s health wruld justify state regulation of abortions in the second three months of pregnancy. Just how far states can go in !llch regulation is the question before the c,urt in cases from Virginia, Missouri and Akron, Ohio, Not until more than halfway throughthe first case did she speak up. By then, seven of the nine justices had raised questiom. Her first query tried
ENEW YORK – Sandra Day O’Connor, the first and only woman ever named to the U.S. Supreme Court, won hands down as the most influential woman in America in 1982. The list, announced today, showed. the justice with 81 votes among the 133 possibles in the World Almanac’s annual compilation done through editorial representatives on major newspapers. O’Connor was a former Arizona legislator and Superior Court and Appeals Court judge. Katharine Graham, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the Washington Post, ran a close second with 75 votes, followed by Billie Jean King, the champion tennis player, with 60. Last year Graham and King tied for the No. 1 spot. Graham has been on the list ever since the World Almanac started compiling it in 1977. Jane D. Flatt, Almanac publisher, said O’Connor probably did not make the 1981 list simply because she was fairly new to the job. Jeane Kirkpatrick, chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations, won 44 votes, first lady ]’J;,mc . R~a~a!I,. S6. )30th :”ome~ trailed Eleanor Smeal, until recently president of the National Organization for Women (with 53); Phyllis Schlafly, leader of the stop-ERA movement (52) and Gloria Steinem, editor of MS magazine (52).
Brooke Shields, the beautiful teen-age model and actress, polled 27, becoming the youngest “influential” ever named to the list.
Graham, Barbara Walters and Barbara Jordan, teaching at the University of Texas, are the only three to have been named to the list fro the past six years.
The
There was a fantastic outpouring of enthusiasm from people all over this country, from all walks of life and, surprisingly enough, even from people from other countries. It
was very touching to see that excitement.
It doesn’t take long for the steeliness to emerge from Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s apparently gentle manner. As the conversation strays onto a subject she dislikes, she firmly chops it off.
“I don’ think that would be appropriate,” she says, and a taut smiles ensures that, suddenly, you don’t think it would be, either.
Arizona’s favorite daughter already is setting a precedent by granting an interview, not encouraged among Supreme Court justices. But she almost is bound to be a trend setter: the 102nd person appointed to the highest judicial branch of U.S. government, and its first female.
Justice O’Connor’s record after a year in office is characterized primarily by its conservatism. Apart from Chief Justice Warren Burger, the principal voice from the right is that of the court’s other Arizonan, Justice William Rehnquist. In 139 decisions, O’Connor has concurred with him 123 times.
But she also has joined the court liberals on some decisions, notable in cases concerned with sexual discrimination.
She has attracted comment with her apparent leaning toward state power vs federal power.
What caught her most by surprise during her first year was the volume of mail that greeted her.
“I was inundated with it in the early months here,” she said, “far more than I had anticipated.”
By The Associated Press NEW ORIEANS – Life has its crossroads its searing intervals when a person momenta~ily isn’t sure which way to go or what to do, but in which the situation compels a choice. Out of experiencing such crises, four noted women say the answers come through prayer . “In faith , you turn to the source in times of stress and there’ll always be direction ,” says Coretta Scott King. “It may not be what you asked for, but it’s what God wants you todo.” She says that was the determining factor after a 1956 fire-bombing of her home where she and her first child were alone, that forged her initial fateful commitment to the civil rights cause led by her late husband, Martin Luther King.
Shaken directly by the danger of it, “I had to do some deep soul searching about my commitment to the struggle. I knew I would have to be as committed as my husband. ” Then and there, in earnest prayer, cradling her child outside their blasted bedroom, she made her commitment “prepared for whatever might take place.” ‘ “It ultimately did,” she adds of the 1968 assassination of King.
She and other women – including Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’CoMor – appeared on a panel at the recent Episcopal Church convention here, describing differing critical times in their lives when they say they found God’s guidance through prayer. Justice O’CoMor’s hour of decision came when the offer of the Supreme Court appointment came, the first ever to a woman. “It was like a ~underbolt,” she said.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Supreme Court nominee Sandra Day O’Cormor said today she is opposed to abortion but that her personal views would not control her votes on the nation’s highest court. “My own view in the area of abortion is that I’m opposed to it,” O’Cormor told the Senate Judiciary Committee. But she emphasized her belief that judges should not let personal feelings dictate their decisions on constitutional issues. O’Connor, the first woman ever nominated to the Supreme Court, sought to explain and defend votes she cast while a member of the Arizona Senate from 1969 to 1975 which have been interpreted by political conservatives as “proabortion.” She portrayed those votes as not true reflections on abortion, itself, but on tangential legislative concerns. In response to other committee questions, O’Connor attempted to enhance her image as a judicial conservative. “I do well understand the difference between legislating and judging. . . . As a judge, it is not my function to develop social policy by means of making the law,” she said. O’Connor has been a state appeals court judge in Arizona since 1979, and was a state trial judge the previous four years. “I do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times or social mores have changed,” she said. O’Connor promised the senators that, if confirmed as the 102nd member in the high court’s 191-year history, her job will be “one of interpreting and applying the law, not making it.” Keeping
“In every age, there comes a time when leadership suddenly comes forth to meet the needs of the hour. And so there is no man who does not find his time, and there is no hour that does not have its leader.” At first blush, this ancient saying suggests merely that there will always be a Moses when a Moses is needed. Yet, on further examination of the words, “there is no man who does not find his time,” we realiw that the message conveyed is that each of us, in our own individual lives and the crises we face, will have a time to lead. Whether we will lead only a family, or a handful of friends, and where and how we will lead, is up to us, our views and our talents. But the hour Vlill come for each of us, and, became we know this, we surely must also know that the very nature of humanity and society, regard~ss of its size or complexity, will alvays turn on the act of the individ1al and, therefore on the qualityof that individual. My ecperience in the executive, legislati,e, and judicial branches of governnent and my position on the Suprem, Court all point to this conclusim: an informed, reasoned effort ly one citizen can have dramatc impact on how someone, like a ~gislator, will vote and act. When ‘ was in the legislature, one person, sometimes with a direct interes in the matter, sometimes withou one, would on occasion persuale me by the facts, by the clarityof the explanation and by the rasoning, to do something which never would otherwise have done. have been at caucuses when
A year ago, at the end of the 1980 term, a consensus developed among observers of the U.S. Supreme Court: The court was drifting. With the end of the 1981 term, that view remains unchanged: The court is still drifting. This past term saw no new landmarks, no great beacons of the law. We had nothing to rank with the Brown case on school segregation, or the Miranda case on the rights of an accused, or the Miller case on pornog-‘ raphy. The court never painted with a broad brush on a big canvas. We wound up with small etchings, tightly framed. A simple explanation – it is not intended to be cynical – accounts for the situation. We pride ourselves on saying that
It is a myth, a shibboleth, a sham. , At the level of the Supreme Court, ours is emphatically not a government 1 of abstract law, but a government of eight very mortal men and one woman. As always, these nine human beings brought to their opinions the accumulated convictions, prejudices and attitudes of their lifetimes. Members of the court detest the journalist’s practice of putting them in ideological pigeonholes, but the custom gains in understanding more than it loses in precision. With few exceptions, the three conservatives (Burger, Rehnquist and O’Connor) came down on the side of judicial restraint and narrow construction. The three liberals (Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun) tended toward activism and expansion. The three centrists (White, Powell and Stevens) tilted the teeter-totter first here, then there. In a recent
Sandra Day O’Connor, after her first term as a Supreme Court justice, is a solid member of the court’s conservative wing. In the session that ended July 2, Mrs. O’Connor voted to: v Give local school boards unlimit.ed power to remove books they find offensive from high school and junior high libraries. Her side lost. v Let Washington state voters bat a school busing plan voluntarily adopted by the city of Seattle to achieve racial balance. Again, she was on the losing end. v Allow states to execute “non-triggerman” ‘ criminals whose crimes resulted in a death even though they did not intend to take part in a killing. Another minority view. Mrs. O’Connor’s overall voting record indicates just how much she has joined the court’s conservative side since she was awom in last September. In the 31 cases decided by 6-4 votes – rulings that generally indicate the thorniest disputes between liberals and conservatives – Mrs. O’Connor sided with ultra-conservative justice William H. Rehnquist 27 times. She sided only four times in 5-4 decisions with Justice William J. Brennan, leader of the court’s liberals. Only once were the three justices on the same side in a 6-4 ruling, a relatively minor case. In other key cases during the just-complet.ed term, the 52-year-old Mrs. O’Connor voted to: .,,,, Bar all lawsuits seeking monetary damages from U.S. presidents for misconduct in office. Her side prevailed. .,,,, Deny illegal alien children a free public school education. A; minority view. v
Where the rumor started, no one seems to know.. But now Baltimore Sun Washington correspondent Lyle Denniston has published what had been mere gossip among politicians. Denniston writes that it is “common speculation” that Justice Sandra O’Connor may be interested in running for vice president. At the risk of trying to speak for Justice O’Connor, we suspect the speculation is more wishful thinking by some eager Republican political matchmaker looking for a so-called dream ticket. Certainly none of Justice O’Connor’s intimates takes the report seriously, nor have they heard any interest by her about leaving the Supreme Court. In fact, Justice O’Connor is known to relish the potential of the career that lies ahead on the nation’s highest judicial body, which has more influence over national policy than the vice president does.
Moreover, Justice O’Connor chose long ago to abandon elective office in favor of the judiciary. When confronted with the opportunity some years ago of running for governor, she chose instead a career in the state court system. Presidential and vice presidential politics are a risky business. The American electorate is unpredictable, and there is no certainty that Republicans – of which Justice O’Connor is one – will retain the White House the next go-around in 1984. On the other hand, Justice O’Connor has a lifetime seat on the court. Speculation that she would leave that elegant position for the rowdy politics of a presidential campaign simply defy logic
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has ruled that an 1866 law that protects the rights of blacks is violated only by racial bias that is intentional. The 7-2 decision June 29 strictly limits the scope of a law – now applying to jobs, housing and private schools – that had become a favorite of civil rights lawyers. As a result, the law, which had been viewed as an easier alternative than other forms of federal protection for blacks’ rights, loses some of its potential impact. The court said evidence a policy of a state or local government agency or a private institution had a heavier impact on blacks than on whites is not enough to prove a violation of the law. There must be proof that blacks were treated less well on purpose, the court added. The court also ruled that an organization or institution that does not discriminate intentionally on the basis of race has no legal duty under the law to assure that other groups with which it deals do not discriminate against blacks either. “The immediate evils with which Congress was concerned (after the Civil War) simply did not include practices that were neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent,” Justice William H. Rehnquist said for the majority. The justices had been searching for a test case on the issue for several years, but the earlier cases they had chosen for review ended without a decisive ruling on the law’s reach. The two dissenting justices argued that the 116-yearold law had been adopted by Congress to “blot
WASHINGTON – Sandra O’Connor, after her first term as a Supreme Court justice, is a solid member of the court’s conservative wing. In the session that ended Friday, O’Connor voted to: – Give local school boards unlimited power to remove books they find offensive from high school and junior high libraries. Her side lost. – Let Washington state voters bar a school busing plan voluntarily adopted by the city of Seattle to achieve racial balance. Again, she was on the losing end. – Allow states to execute “non-triggerman” criminals whose crimes resulted in a death even though they did not intend to take part in a killing. Another minority view. O’Connor’s overall voting record indicates just how much she has joined the court’s conservative side since she was sworn in last September. In the 31 cases decided by 5-4 votes – rulings that generally indicate the thorniest disputes between liberals and conservatives – O’Connor sided with ultra-conservative Justice William Rehnquist 27 wnes. She sided only four times in 5-4 decisions with Justice William Brennan, leader of the court’s liberals. Only once were the three justices on the same side in a 5-4 ruling, a relatively minor case. In other key cases during the just-completed term, the 52-year-old O’Connor voted to: – Bar all lawsuits seeking monetary damages from U.S. presidents for misconduct in office. Her side prevailed. – Deny illegal alien children a free public school education. A minority view. – Expand the power of police to
WASHING TON – The Supreme Court, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor choosing the subject of unconstitutional sex bias to write her first opinion, says state-supported nursing schools cannot bar men from enrolling. Thursday’s 5-4 decision is a victory for Joe Hogan, who broke a 97-year tradition by becoming the first man to enroll at the Mississippi University for Women. Justice O’Connor, the court’s only female mem-• her, wrote for the majority that Hogan’s exclusion from the university’s nursing school violated the Constitution’s guarantee of “equal protection” of the laws. “Rather than compensate for discriminatory barriers faced by women, MUW’s policy of excluding males from admission to the school of nursing tends to perpetuate the stereotyped view of nursing as an exclusively woman’s job,” Justice O’Connor said. “By assuring that Mississippi allots more openings in its state-supported nursing schools to women than it does to men,” she wrote, “MUW’s admissions policy lends credibility to the old view that women, not men, should become nurses, and makes the assumption that nursing is a field for women a self-fulfilling prophecy.” The university, located in Columbus, Miss., is the nation’s only state-supported university for women. Hogan, a hospital nurse who lives with his wife in Columbus, wanted to attend the local university to obtain a bachelor’s degree in nursing. His application to the university was rejected because he is a man. Mississippi Attorney General Bill Allain
When President Reagan nominated Sandra O’Connor for the Supreme Court last year, there was a good deal of grumbling. It turned out to be a political masterstroke that sailed through the confirmation process in the Senate, but conservatives weren’t so sure. Her record was sketchy, and what there was of it caused alarm among anti – abortion groups. , Afte~ Justice O’Connor’s six months on the Court, however, The New Republic concludes after an examination of her record that “her vote has not always been predict – able. But she has cast her lot often enough with lawschool classmate William Rehnquist and with Chief Justice Burger to help forge a clear conservative majority on a number of crucial issues … Mrs. O’Connor’s record so far suggests she will not alter the steady conservative momentum of the Court … And as the youngest member of the Supreme Court, Justice O’Connor may be with us until well into the 21st century.”
The key cases in her six-month record were not of the headline variety, but they do indicate that Justice O’Connor takes a restricted view of activist interventions by the Supreme Court. On January 12, for example, her vote helped provide a bare five-vote majority in a ruling that ordinary taxpayers could not sue in federal court to block the government from giving property to a religious group. The case was Valley Forge Christian College versus Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It turned on the issue of “standing,” that is, who is entitled
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor says her appointment to the court has been seen as an indication that there are “virtually unlimited opportunities for women.” “I had no idea when I was apvointed how much it would mean to many people around the country,” she said in an interview in the April issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal published Tuesday. “It affected them in a very personal- way,” Mrs. O’Connor said. “People saw the appointment as signal that the,re are virtually unlimited opportunities for women. It’s important to mothers for their daughters and to daughters for themselves.” But Mrs. O’Connor said she does miss her former home in Phoenix, where she and her husband, John, had lived since the mid-1950s. “I miss the atmosphere of the desert, I miss the open vistas, the clear sky and the availablity of the outdoors,” she said. Her husband. a lawyer who has joined a Washington law firm, said in the Journal that his wife appointment has not . made his life difficult. ‘ “My life has become vastly broadened and vastly enriched by her appointment,” he said. “I am not only happy for Sandra because she is so competent and so deserving, but I am happy for myself and my family because all our lives have become more interesting. “Sandra’s accomplishments don’t make me a lesser man; they make me a fuller man.” For her part, Mrs. O’Connor said, “It may seem surprising, but my new position hasn’t really changed things in terms of how I deal with people. “There’s some nervousness
WASHINGTON – A Supreme Court justice has hinted strongly to Congress that a key case will be decided in favor of keeping federal courts open for the growing volume of civil rights damage claims. The highly unusual hint came March 9 in testimony by the newest justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, before the House Appropriations Subcommittee that is studying the court’s $14.9 million budget request. The issue arises in a pending Florida case that has the potential of cutting off many civil rights cases. She did not say, in so many words, how the court would rule. But she did urge Congress to pass a law to achieve that result by requiring most civil rights cases to be pursued first with state agencies, instead of going directly to the federal courthouse. It would not be necessary for Congress to act, of course, if the justices were to interpret present law to give state agencies priority in handling such cases. Asked after the hearing if the issue she had discussed were not the same one now under review by the court in the Florida case, O’Connor replied: “I will rest on what I said.” Just two weeks ago, the court heard lawyers argue the case. Under normal procedures, the justices would have cast their preliminary vote on the case at their secret conference on Friday. O’Connor’s promotion of a federal law to shunt more civil rights cases to state agencies echoed a proposal she made in a law review article last summer, before she was chosen for the Supreme Court. An Arizona appeals court
VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (AP) – Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, VisionQuest and a Flowing Wells High School graduate are a!Ilong the winners of the 1981 Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge National Awards, the foundation announced. Mrs. O’Connor, a former Arizona Court of Appeals judge, won a Distinguished Award from the foundation. Jill Barber, a freshman political economy major at Hillsdale College in Michigan, won a “Youth Essay 1981” George Washington Honor Medal. She was valedictorian of the 1981 Flowing Wells graduating class. The VisionQuest wagon train program for troubled youths won the George Washington Honor Medal for “Community Program 1981” honors. The annual awards recognize individuals and organizations who support U.S. social, polit_ical and economic institutions and present solutions to contemporary problems. Joining Mrs. O’Connor as winners of Distinguished Awards were Beverly Sills, Pearl . Bailey, Arthur Ashe, Rod McKuen, Roger Staubach, the Special Olympics and, posthumously, Anwar Sadat. Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, whose honorary chairman is President Reagan, describes itself as a non-profit, non-sectarian and non-political organization that promotes American heritage.
Nineteen opinions do not a full term make, but so far it looks as if Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will be joining the conservative bloc on the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s first woman justice has sided with the liberals on only one of the 5-4 divisions to date. A paragraph probably should be inserted to acknowledge the irritation felt by the justices whenever they are thus labeled by the press. The high court is not a kind of judicial bench show, the collies here and the poodles there. Nevertheless, when the court divides narrowly, we generally find the “liberal” Justices Brennan and Marshall on one side and the “conservative” Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist on the other. Justice O’Connor seems to have suited up with the Burger-Rehnquist team. Through Jan. 21, the court had acted on 21 cases. Justice O’Connor had participated in 19 of these. Of the 19, only two were unanimous decisions, and in these two Justice O’Connor herself spoke for the court. In the other 17, the court fell apart like the one-hoss shay. I haven’t checked the statistics, but I suspect that some sort of record was set at this point in a term of court, when four of five decisions on Jan. 12 were reached by 5-4 divisions. This is not the most congenial court that ever came along. Justice Brennan has succeeded the late Justice Douglas as the most acerbic dissenter on the court. In one of the 5-4 decisions of Jan. 12, this one involving the gift of federal property to the Valley Forge Christian College
In Arizona, 1981 started with a bang. A few minutes after the year had begun, Gilbert Dixon, 35, was walking in an alley next to a UTotem convenience store at 602 N. First Ave. Into the alley came a car, with one of its two occupants firing a pistol into the air. “Happy New Year,” Dixon cried, and the man with the gun shot him in the leg. In a way, 1981 was a year that both justified Dixon’s optimism and reflected his fate. On the bright side, a warrior came home from captivity to a hero’s welcome, an Arizonan made history by becoming the first woman member of the U.S. Supreme Court, and a Mesa woman survived a drastic heart-lung transplant. On the dark side, two men were convicted of a brutal contract killing that occurred on the eve of the new year, a Tucson bank was the target of the largest bank robbery in the nation’s history, and a valley in southern Arizona crackled with tension as longtime residents clashed with gun-toting members of a religious cult. It also was a year for offbeat items – topped by the story of true belitJvtrs who planned to end the year in heaven but who had to Republic. settle for Arizona. An oddball entry was one of the first in line for the year. In January, Granvel Downing, a 40- year-old Phoenix construction worker, said he had received a $500 settlement in a lawsuit that he filed after finding a lizard in a bottle of Coke on Sept. 7, 1978. The defendants were the Phoenix Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and Circle K Corp. Downing’s lawyer said one of the
Sandra Day O’Connor’s appointment as the first U.S. Supreme Court justice easily led the I allot for the top Arizona news in 1981, but even ‘ ,en the vote was far from unanimous. Though not really in the running for the Top n, Arizona Associated Press member editors and news directors gave at least some consideration to such other events as the successful transcontinental SuperChicken balloon journey and the unsuccessful predictions in Tucson for “rapture,” the day when all Christians were to be taken up bodily into beaten. It was an eventful year and the diversity of the voting reflected the variation . But with a few exceptions, the events deemed the most newswor – thy over the past 12 months centered more on individuals than on situations. Arizona’s economy, the copper industry’s depression, an Apache Cowity tax revolt, a variety of natural gas leaks, plane crashes, murder trials, a group suicide and other deaths – these all drew a scattering of votes but wound up far down the list. • Second place went to the return of Marine Sgt. James Lopez, career diplomat Robert Ode and the other Americans held hostage in Iran for 444 days. A strong third was the Arizona lottery and its ticket sales that far exceeded expectations . The Orme Dam controversy and its resolution was No. 4 in the voting, followed by Arizona’s passage of its alternative to Medicaid. Eight of those voting gave top honors to the O’Connor story, and only the hostage return drew more than one first-place vote. Selected
Women as Supreme Court candidates: From Florence Allen to Sandra Day O’Connor
By Beverly B. Cook
America was not ready for a woman on the Supreme Court when a well-qualified Florence Allen was available in the 1930s. But by Sandra O’Connor’s day, America had changed its mind.
In the years between Florence E. Allen’s New Deal-era candidacy for the United States Supreme Court and the appointment of Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman associate justice in September 1981, the proportion of women lawyers qualified for the Court did not change; the number of viable women candidates remained very small. But what did change over the intervening 50 years was the nation’s social climate and political culture.
[Photo caption: U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger swears in Sandra Day O’Connor on September 25. Her husband, John, holds two family Bibles.]
Allen’s active self-candidacy faltered against the resistance of public opinion and the disinterest of the president. The public did not accept a woman’s seat on the Court, and the politicians, the legal professionals and the justices themselves did not perceive women lawyers as eligibles in the candidate pool. O’Connor’s route to the Supreme Court was smoothed by the recent acceptability of women in high public positions. The new public opinion toward female roles and the increasing importance of the women’s vote encouraged President Reagan to create a woman’s seat and then to look into the small pool of eligible women to find the one most
Justice O’Connor Replaces Justice Stewart: What Effect On Constitutional Cases?
CHARLES D. KELSO*
Potter Stewart, a Republican from Ohio, was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1958 by President Eisenhower. By the time of his retirement in 1981, Justice Stewart had served through the Warren years and the first decade of the Burger era.1 Pres ident Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to fill the vacancy. A Republican from Arizona, she served in its legislature and on its Court of Appeals. Lawyers who follow decisions of the Court are asking what difference her appointment will make in constitutional cases.
The question can be approached by studying the most recent term of the Court. From the pattern of votes, particularly how Justice Stewart stood in the 5-4 decisions, some inferences can be drawn. Another ap proach is to look back at 5-4 decisions in previous years where Justice Stewart’s vote with the majority was crucial to the outcome. Both ap proaches will be explored in this article.
During its 1980-81 term, the Supreme Court decided and wrote opin ions in 70 cases where constitutional issues were presented. The pat tern of votes was as follows:
J.D., 1950 University of Chicago; LL.M. 1962 Columbia University; LL.D., 1966 John Marshall Law School: J.S.D., 1968 Columbia University. Law Clerk to Mr. Justice Minton, 1950- 51; Former Associate Dean and Professor of Law, University of Miami, 1966-68; Professor of Law Indiana University; Professor of
“READING” JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR
Carl R. Schenker, Jr.•
On September 25, 1981, Judge Sandra Day O’Connor of the Court of Appeals of Arizona took the oath of office as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice O’Connor’s elevation to the Court should be of great interest to state and local governments because her extensive prior involvement in local government should give her an unusual perspective in cases before the Court implicating state or local interests.
I. INTRODUCTION
Justice O’Connor has served previously as an assistant state attorney general, a state legislator, and a state trial and intermediate appellate court judge. Thus, her professional experiences have been intensely “local” and presumably have versed her thoroughly in many of the problems con fronting state and local governments. By contrast, most of the sitting Jus tices were working within a “federal” context at the time of appointment to the Court. When nominated, Chief Justice Burger and Justices Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens were all sitting on United States Courts of Ap peals; Justices White and Rehnquist were serving as senior officials in the Department of Justice. And neither of the other members of the Court, Justices Brennan and Powell, had as wide a variety of experiences in state and local government as Justice O’Connor.
Popular publicity concerning Justice O’Connor has emphasized that she is the first woman to sit on the Court, rather than that her experience
Arizona’s No. 1 news story for 1981, as voted by the staff of The Phoenix Gazette, was a happy, precedentsetting event that also ranks among the top nationwide. . The news was the appointment of San4ra Day O’Connor of Arizona – a judge, politician, lawyer, wife, mother r. the first woman to sit as a justice Qt the United States Supreme Court. P-.esident Reagan announced her ppdintment July 7, and from then fnti after Justice O’Connor began t sking questions from the bench of _he nation’s highest court, the Arizoilan continued to be front page news. ‘ Justice O’Connor was serving on fhe Arizona Court of Appeals at the time of her nomination. She prefiously was a Maricopa County Superior Court judge. : The remaining nine 1981 stories on ‘fheGazette list, are the: ‘ • Shelving of the proposed Orme barn at the confluence of the Salt and Terde rivers in favor of a Waddell Dam on the Agua Fria. • Beginning of the Arizona Lottery, Its unprecedented success – and its J>ro~lems. 1 • Death of Bishop James Rausch of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix and the appointment of Bishop Tom O’Brien as his successor. • . • Passage of a $5.8-billion transportation package – including an 8 percent gas tax based on the average retail price per gallon – and the initiative effort that will give voters a chance to turn down that increase. • Redistricting of the five congressional and 30 legislative districts to l;onform with one-man, one-vote manpates based on the 1980 census. : • Natural gas explosions,
Chief Justice Warren Burger refused Wednesday to block U.S. Steel Corp.’s proposed takeover of Marathon Oil Co. Burger turned down an emergency request by rival bidder Mobil Corp. to postpone the Jan. 7 date that U.S. Steel expects to begin buying Marathon’s shares under its $125-a-share tender offer. But the chief justice’s action left open the chance that Mobil could return to him soon. Burger denied the request “without prejudice,” citing a Supreme Court rule that disallows such emergency motions that have not been denied first by appropriate lower courts. Mobil, the nation’s second-largest oil company, asked Justice Sandra O’Connor on Tuesday to freeze the takeover fight until the full Supreme Court has a chance to hear a formal appeal the company filed Tuesday. The appeal challenges a ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals preventing Mobil from buying Marathon stock. Last week, the appeals court ruled that Mobil’s aoouisition of Marathon probably would- violate federal antitrust laws. Justice O’Connor, who hand les all emergency matters coming to the high court from the states encompassed by the 6th circuit, disqualified herself. Following court custom, Justice O’Connor did not explain why she took herself out of the case. Justice O’Connor and her husband, attorney John J. O’Connor III, are spending part of the holidays at their Paradise Valley home. O’Connor, contacted by phone at their home, said he could not comment on court matters in which his wife is involved.
~r, three mon~hs at her new job, Arizona s Sandra O Connor is working IO-hour days, lunching at her desk and has quickly become “one of the guys” on the U.S. Supreme Court. “Within the court itself, she has fit in very easily,” Justice O’Connor’s law clerk, Ruth V. McGregor, a Phoenix resident, said today. “On the world outside, though she is the first woman on the court’ and that is historic.” Mrs. McGregor, who was Justice O’Connor’s hand-picked choice for the prestigious one-year clerkship, told JUSTICE O’CONNOR RUTH McGREGOR The Phoenix Gazette the new justice has not aligned herself with any philosophical group on the ninemember high court. “SHE ANALYZES each case individually and very carefully,” said Mrs. McGregor, who was a partner in the Phoenix firm of Fennemore, Craig, von Ammon & Udall. In the 11 rulings already issued since Oct. 1, Justice O’Connor “has not lined up with the traditional liberal or traditional conservative bloc,” Mrs. McGregor said. If there has been a surprise for the 38-year-old attorney, a 1974 graduate of Arizona State University College of Law, it has been the heavy workload. “Most Americans think that since the court is in session 14 weeks a year, and hand down about 160 decisions, that they don’t work the rest of they year,” she said. “Actually, the workload is incredible, and the justices work very long hours,” Mrs. McGregor said . EACH WEEK, the court receives about 100 petitions for review, making for a three-foot-high stack of reading –
Before it recessed for the Christmas holidays, the Supreme Court had handed down 11 full-blown opinions and disposed of hundreds of cases with summary orders. As an old trend-spotter, I venture this observation: There are no trends to spot. The high court rocks . along as smoothly as those famous crewmen of the children’s round, who rowed, rowed, rowed their boat gently down the stream. The 1980-81 term saw no great leaps in the law. Nothing thus far in the new term suggests a lust for judicial innovation. The only difference in the present term lies in the presence on the bench of Justice Sandra .Day O’Connor, whose destiny is to go through life forever . hearing herself introduced as the first woman ever to be appointed, etc., etc. She has slipped into the life of the court as easily as a fireman slips into his boots. She has not hesitated to ask questions from the bench. She speaks her mind at the court’s weekly conferences. By every account she is a charming woman, but she is also a justice. She expects, and she gets, the same respect the others get; As Ronald Reagan’s first nominee, it was generally expected – hoped, perhaps – that Justice O’Connor would join the court’s conservative bloc. It hasn’t worked out quite that way, though the evidence is inconclusive. Mrs. O’Connor has participated in nine of the 11 plenary cases; she dissented from the majority’s reasoning in four of them. As a dissenter, she has sided with the liberals three times, the conservatives only once.
WASHINGTON – As the Senate considered Sandra Day O’Connor’s nomination to the Supreme Court; Sen. Joseph Biden iold his colleagues that “all bets are of.r’ once a justice takes the oath of office .. The Delaware Democrat was right on target in his reminder last Septem ber that no one in the Senate can predict how a new member of the nation’s highest court will vote once he or she “dons that robe and walks into that sanctum across the way.” . ‘ After three months on the court, Justice O’Connor shows no signs of aligning herself with either its liberal or conservative bloc. SHE told the Senate last summer that her job would be “one of interpreting and applying the law, not making it.” That philosophy has led the high court’s first woman member on occasion to side with the cQurt’s liberals, its conservatives and sometimes mixtures of both. Since she was sworn in Sept. 25, Justice O’Connor: • Joined three of the court’s more conservative members in dissenting from part of a decision allowing most confidential secretaries and other workers with access to an employer’s confidential information to join labor unions. • Joined Justice John Paul Stevens and liberal Justices Thurgood Marshall and William J. Brennan in dissenting from a decision barring federal courts from hearing virtually all laws uas seeking money damages because of allegedly discriminatory property tax assessments. • Joined overwhelming majorities – made up of both liberals and conservatives – in several decisions
~ HOENIX (AP)-The nation’s first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice – Sandra O’Connor of Phoenix-and University of Arizona astronaut Bradford Smith are among “the 25 most intriguing people of 1981” as listed by People magazine. Smith, 50, said he was surprised by his inclusion. He is noted for his work with the university’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and with Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as head of the photo-imagery team for the Voyager spacecraft missions to Jupiter and Saturn.
WASHINGTON – Broadcast executive Mark Evans Austad of Scottsdale was sworn in Thursday as ambassador to Norway for the Reagan administration. He was administered the oath of office by another Arizonan, Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor, during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. The diplomatic appointment is the second for Austad, 62, vice president of Metromedia Inc., the nation’s largest independent broadcast company. He was ambassador to Finland for two years under the Nixon and Ford administrations. Before moving to Arizona, he was a radio and television personality in Washington, D.C., for nearly 25 years under the professional name of Mark Evans. Austad told The Arizona Republic his post in Norway will be one of considerable responsibility. As a NATO ally, Norway occupies a strategic place in the defense of Europe. It was the first country to open the North Sea oil fields and is located strategically on the North Atlantic, he said. More than 15,000 Americans live there.
Austad said President Reagan notified him in August of his nomination to the ambassadorial post. He said he told the president, “You are a man of destiny, and I am proud to play a little part in your administration.” The president replied, “Mr. Ambassador, Norway is not a little part of my administration,” Austad said. Deputy Secretary of State Walter J. Stoessel Jr., representing Secretary of State Alexander Haig, said Austad is “remarkably well-qualified” for the ambassadorship. Stoessel, former ambassador
United Press International
WASHINGTON – Justice Sandra O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, was the first to questton attorneys Wednesday in a sex-discrimination case of intense interest to women’s rights advocates. The case, brought by two Connecticut school boards, tests the government’s powers to police the job practices of schools and colleges that receive federal funds and to cut off funding if sex discrimination is found. The chief point of controversy is whether Congress intended for the Department of Education to use its rules to weed out sex discrimination in the field of employment practices. In appealing a ruling that allows the government to act against them for allegedly discriminating against two female employees, the North Haven and Trumbull boards of education contend that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 never was meant to apply to faculty, administrators and 1 teachers but only to students. They say the agency went beyond its authority in , adopting regulations covering employment and the rules should be declared invalid. Representing the government, Solicitor General Rex Lee defended the regulations as they apply to employment. But he also made a significant concession. Lee indicated that the Justice Department now ] acknowledges that Title IX cannot be applied as broadly as women’s rights groups might have liked. Retreating from a position held under the Carter administration, Lee said it is agreed the law can be used to penalize only
Sandra Day O’Connor, the Supreme Court’s first woman justice, and her husband, John J. O’Connor, lived in a towered Victorian house in Charlottesville for about 90 “idyllic” days in 1954. Justice O’Connor last week described the time she spent between February and May of that year in Charlottesville while her husband was a student at the U.S. Army Judge Advcate General’s School. • “We thoroughly enjoyed the three months we spent there in the spring,” she said. Mr. O’Connor, contacted in Phoenix, Ariz., where he is presently an attorney, said that he and his wife had lived in the solarium apartment of a large house at 620 Park Street, while he was a U.S. Army lieutenant in the basic class at JAG School. “We had only been married since Dec. 20, 1952; and neither of us had ever been East, so for us it was a very, very happy interlude. We loved Charlottesville, and we established some friendships at the JAG School which have lasted all these years,” Mr. O’Connor said. He recalled that a friend who had been in the previous JAG class was vacating the apartment on the comer of Park Street and Park Lane and recommended that they take it. He said he car-pooled to school with six other JAG students so their wives could always have a car. “We all got together and played charades – people don’t play that much anymore – and we went with friends to Williamsburg and Washington, D.C., never dreaming that someday that would be our ~anent.home. It was an ~e time in our lives,and 1 we developed
WASHINGTON – Sandra O’Connor’s first opinion as a Supreme Court justice – delivered Tuesday in an oil- and gas-leasing dispute – came on a unanimous vote. But it was nonetheless a controversial ruling that says the Interior Department need not try out different offshore-leasing arrangements that might provide more revenue for the government and less for oil companies. With Justice O’Connor reading her first decision from the bench, the high court by a 9-0 vote struck down a ruling that had ordered the government to “experiment” in leasing deals with oil firms that want to drill on the Outer Continental Shelf. The alternative leasing plans are intended to give small firms a better chance when competing against the biggest oil companies in bidding for drilling rights. Justice O’Connor, who promised at her confirmation hearings that her opinions would be “terse,” fulfilled that vow with a 17-page ruling that avoided flowery language. _ , Shortly after Tuesday’s session opened, Justice O’Connor – the first woman ever to sit on the nation’s highest court – delivered her opinion in a steady voice. Seated at the far right of the long mahogany bench, the customary spot for the court’s junior justice, she took five minutes to read parts of it to the near-capacity crowd in the marble-columned courtroom. Her opinion managed to cover the history of the dispute in just over seven pages. In the remaining 10, she discussed the arguments on both sides, concluding with the court’s analysis and
TRIBUTE
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Reflections of a Fellow Jurist
Laurance T. Wren*
On the afternoon of September 25, 1981, I watched Sandra O’Connor sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. I marveled that an event so steeped in tradition would consume only a few minutes. She spoke no words, except her oath, followed by a smile at the President and a “welcome” from the Chief Justice. Yet, with this simple ceremony she began walking where no woman had ever walked before.
As Justice O’Connor took her seat to the far left of the Court, I felt great pride in being a member of the “obscure” Arizona court from which she came. The early morning announcement on July 7, 1981, that Presi dent Reagan had nominated her to the Supreme Court was not only to
change the course of American history, it was to have a tremendous im pact on Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals, and even take some of its members to a reception. at the White House and the chambers of the United States Supreme Court.
The announcement also brought to our court scores of reporters, pho tographers, and television cameramen. We were deluged by hundreds of phone calls from all over the United States. As one of our judges com mented, it was as if we, too, had been vicariously appointed to the Court. As I write this, on the first Monday in October, the Court crier has again proclaimed that Supreme Court of the United States is in session, and Justice O’Connor has begun her
It can be said of Supreme Court justices that most Americans would not know one when they saw one. This year, however, one made the cover of People magazine. Sandra Day O’Connor is stopped in public places and asked for autographs. It can be said of oral argument at the Supreme Court that it is not one of the most popular shows in town. But this year, attendance by the public in the first two months of the term increased 30 percent. The eight other justices seem socially invisible in this town. But there are so many requests for social commitments by O’Connor that she apparently does not have time to see fully what she is getting into. O’Connor recently found. herself contributing two autographed copies of the Decl8.l’ation of Independence to what turned out to be a fundraising auction for a legal defense fund. That is taboo for Supreme Court justices. A court spokesman said that being “flooded with requests, she was unaware” of the auction’s purpose. Nobody cares much about the comings and goings of, say, Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Nobody cared, for example, that Chief Justice Warren E. Burger rode a bicycle until an accident some years ago. This year, there have been several inquiries about where O’Connor takes her exercise class, an item and cartoon in the American Bar Association journal about how she was asked for check-cashing identification at a local supermarket and a mention in the Ear gossip column about how she was spotted unloading personal belongings from a UHaul
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said today the time has come for Arizona “to buckle down and achieve a thorough reform1 ‘ of its lower court system. “Arizona has studied this problem long enough,” Justice O’Connor told an audience of about 400 at a conference on “Arizona’s Pe()ples Courts: Proposals for Improvement,” at the Arizona State University College of Law. SHE SAID the current judicial system creates “overlapping jurisdiction, duplication, disparity in workloads and cash-register justice.” Justice O’Connor, an Arizona appeals court judge before being named by President Reagan to the Supreme Court, was introduced by ASU law professor Willard Pedrick as the “Jackie Robinson” of the high court. Quoting Thomas Jefferson, she said, “Laws and institutions must change to keep pace with changing times.” She traced the history of court reform proposals back to 1906 and outlined successful court unification schemes in Kentucxky, Connecticut and Wisconsin. According to Justice O’Connor, any reform of municipal and justice courts should include: • A mechanism to remove incompetent judges at the local level. • Central court management and administration. “We need to reassign judges, relieve congestion and provide for central recordkeeping,” she said. • State financing of local courts. “People tum to courts when all else fails,” Justice O’Connor told the group, which was dotted with state Supreme Court justices, lawmakers and ASU law students. “Unfortunately they also
The novelist who once observed “you can’t go home again” never knew Sandra O’Connor. America’s first woman Supreme Court justice came home to Phoenix in grand style Wednesday for one last round of send-offs from the admiring friends and co-workers of a quartercentury climaxed by a glittering banquet attended by a veritable “who’s who” of the state’s business, civic, political and judicial establishment. IT WAS a poignant moment, for her new lifetime job in Washington never will allow her to be much more than a visitor to her native state. “She steps out of our midst,” said Gov. Bruce Babbitt, host for the $50- a-plate dinner which sold out in three days, “and into the pages of American Picture On Page A-4 history. We will all miss you very much.” But he added, the justice leaves behind an inspiration “that it’s still possible for the American dream to come true.” Although she had been plucked by President Reagan to a new home a continent away and the highest position ever held by an American woman, Justice O’Connor told the tuxedoed audience of 850 home is still where the – heart is. “ARIZON A IS a land of oppor- . tunity and happiness,” she said. “It is my home because it is where you are. I love Arizona, and I love all of you.” She pledged to spend “the rest of my professional life trying to do everything I can to justify the president’s confidence in me.” And with a reference to one of Reagan’s bestknown movie roles, she added, “I, too, want to win one for the Gipper.” In
Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor, honored as Arizona’s home-grown heroine in daylong festivities Wednesday, credited former colleagues and officials for their ability to look beyond her gender for her eventual rise to the high court. “I found in Phoenix not discrimination, but encouragement; not just an opportunity for women to follow, but an opportunity for women to lead,” the former state senator and Arizona Court of Appeals judge said. “It’s not Sandra O’Connor who brought honor to the state of Arizona, it’s the state of Arizona which has brought honor to Sandra O’Connor. And I thank all of you for the part you’ve played in that.” Justice O’Connor, the first…woman appointed to the Supreme Court, was applauded by a long list of dignitaries, including Sen. Dennis DeConcini., Rep. John Rhodes and Gov. Bruce Babbitt. Her day culminated with a lavish banquet at the Arizona Biltmore attended by 850 invited guests. She also was honored by her husband, John, .who voiced his pride. He also noted his own unique status in Washington when he told the audience that he’s the chief executive of the most exclusive men’s club – the Men’s Auxiliary of the Supreme Court. Earlier in the day, at the state Capitol Mall, Justice O’Connor received accolades and gifts from Babbitt, former legislative and judicial colleagues and Phoenix organizations. In her remarks, she praised Phoenix Mayor Margaret Hance, saying with a smile that the mayor is proof that “a woman can do a reasonably good
O’Connor on the Courts
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will deliver the 9:15am keynote address at a one-day ASU College of Law conference entitled “Arizona’s People’s Courts: Proposals for Improvement” State political and judicial leaders will attend to learn the results of a six-month ASU study of Arizona’s municipal and justice court system. O’Connor is expected to urge state legislators to work towards lower court reform. Other speakers include Chief Presiding Judge William J. Carter, Jon M. Memmott (director of research for the Utah legislature), and Arizona Senators Jim Kolbe, Leo Corbet, and Jones Osborn. All sessions will take place in the Great Hall of the ASU Law Building. The conference is open to the public at no charge.
WASHINGTON – At the age of 51, John J. O’Connor 3d found himself looking for a job. His wife, Sandra Day O’Connor, had been appointed to the Supreme Court, a lifetime job, and unless he planned to spend the rest of his days commuting back to Phoenix where he was a partner in a prestigious corporate law firm, it meant relocating.
Eight years ago John W. Schroeder, a Denver lawyer, faced a similar decision. But his wife did not have lifetime tenure. Patricia Schroeder had been elected to the House of Representatives and their future beyond the two-year term was a question mark.
Mr. O’Connor and Mr. Schroeder are two members of a growing Washington breed: political husbands. As a result of their wives’ election or appointment to office, they face the same problems that political wives have endured for years. Beyond the obvious disruptions of moving a household, finding new schools for the children and confronting career changes, there is the subtle and sensitive problem of suddenly taking second place behind a woman who has instant name recognition and upon whom attention is lavished. It helps to have a strong ego.
Making the Move
”There was really no alternative but to move to Washington,” Mr. Schroeder recalled. ”Our son, Scott, was 6, and our little girl was still in diapers, so it just wasn’t possible to think about trying to live in both cities.”
He turned his caseload over to his Denver partners, flew east on a weekend to buy a Washington home, and after his wife got
Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor will be the guest at the state Capitol today in a day designated by Gov. Bruce Babbitt to honor her. Justice O’Connor, the first female justice, will attend a welcoming ceremony on the Capitol grounds, a luncheon and a black-tie dinner. Mayor Margaret Hance will be host for the luncheon, and Babbitt will have the same role at the dinner, which will be telecast live on Channel 8 beginning at 9 p.m. Babbitt, Arizona Chief Justice Fred Struckmeyer Jr. and legislators will greet .Justice O’Connor at a ceremony at 9:30 a.m. on the Capitol mall. Babbitt will present a proclamation to the former state senator and Arizona Court of Appeals judge naming today Sandra O’Connor Day. At noon, representatives of the Maricopa County Bar Association, Junior League, National Conference of Christian and Jews and the Soroptimist Club of Phoenix will deliver brief remarks at a luncheon at the Lath House in Heritage Square. Justice O’Connor, the 102nd Supreme Court justice, also will speak, according to the mayor’s office. About 400 people are expected to attend the luncheon, she said. The $50-a-plate dinner at the Arizona Biltmore will be preceded by a reception at 6:30 p.m. About 850 guests are expected to attend, the governor’s office reported.
PHOENIX (AP) – The nation’s first woman U.S. Supreme Court justice told a crowd of admirers at the state Capitol today that it “was not Sandra Day O’Connor who brought honor to Arizona, but Arizona that brought honor to Sandra Day O’Connor.” Gov. Bruce Babbitt, Arizona Chief Justice Fred C. Struckmeyer Jr. and legislative leaders joined her on the podium under cloudy skies as about 200-300 persons gathered in the Capitol Mall to offer their tribute. Babbitt formally presented a proclamation declaring the occasion Sandra Day O’Connor Day. “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever dream that I’d be standing here in the Capitol Mall on a day proclaimed as Sandra Day O’Connor Day,” she said. Wearing a white coat against the morning chill, Mrs. O’Connor said she was proud to be allArizona, recalling her career as an assistant attorney general, a state senator and a judge before her nomination to the Supreme Court. “It was this state and this city that gave me a job when there weren’t too many jobs for women,” she said. “It was not just an opportunity to work but to lead.” She said she was hired by a male attorney general as-an assistant and her first assignment was as counsel to the cosmetology board. “I guess they thought I needed to improve my appearance,” she said. When a vacancy occurred in the Arizona Senate, Mrs. O’Connor said, “It was an all-male board of supervisors that appointed me.” “If you think you know your family well, you should try the Legislature when you’re working
PHOENIX (AP) – The nation’s first woman U.S. Supreme Court justice told a crowd of admirers at the state Capitol today that it “was not Sandra Day O’Connor who .brought honor to Arizona, but Arizona that brought honor to Sandra Day O’Connor.” Gov. Bruce Babbitt, Arizona Chief Justice ired C. Struckmeyer Jr. and legislative leaders joined her on the podiwn wider cloudy skies as about 200-300 persons gathered in the Capitol Mall to offer their tribute. Babbitt fonnally presented a proclamation declaring the occasion Sandra Day O’Connor Day. “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever dream that I’d be standing here in the Capitol Mall on a day proclaimed as Sandra Day O’Connor Day,” she said. Wearing a white coat against the morning chill, Mrs. O’Connor said she was proud to be an Arizona, recalling her career as an assistant attorney general, a state senator and a judge before her nomination to the Supreme Court. “It was this state and this city that gave me a job when there weren’t too many jobs for women,” she said . “It was not just an opportunity to work but to lead.” She said she was hired by a male attorney general as an assistant and her first assignment was as counsel to the cosmetology board. “I guess they thought I needed to improve my appearance,” she said. When a vacancy occurred in the Arizona Senate, Mrs. O’Connor said, “It was an all-male board of supervisors that appointed me.”
PHOENIX (AP) – About 850 persons are expected to attend a $50-~- plate dinner being held m Phoenix tonight in honor of Sandra O’Connor, the first woman justice on the C.S Supreme Court. The black-tie dinner at the Arizona Biltmore is to be televised by KAET TV in the Phoenix area . During the morning ceremony, Babbitt planned to present a proclamation to the justice naming today Sandra O’Connor Day. Phoenix [Mayor] Margaret Hance is hosting the Iuncneon and Babbitt has the same role for the dinner .
“‘ 1 first “di scovered ” snow four years ago wh en friends invi~_ed me to the Snowbowl. we had been gettin g the bus iness from our s~ung friends for two seasons about how great the sp ort was, bu t l~k~ most non -skiers , we were convinced these snow-chic snobs ?nly did 1t so th ey could wear their new $500 outfits around the campfire . Two tiring but constructive Mondays lat er , we wer e hooked , bless ed th short lift lines a ba se of 100 inches (with fresh, packed powder, of :~urse) and crystal 1 ctear skies. Growin g up in Illinois , snow was something to sh ovel : in Arizona. it was heaven. we began planning this week ‘s Ticket skiing issue about a month 0 when the weather was still very much in the summer mode. Then , ~f;as easy to handle . But now, as the snow and ski season is on the verg e of rea lity , the wait seems too much to bear. I can only run around the house with my Nordicas on for so long . . So, if the heavens ar e listenin g, let it snow, let it snow, let 1t snow. Who better to display their artwork at an event hono~ng our _ne’!I’ U.S. Sup reme court Justice than Arizona’s foremost pamter, Fntz Scholder? , th H d A recent black tie event honoring Sandra O Connor at e ea~ Museum was gr aced by four paintin gs from Scholder’s flower senes. complimented by a “garden room ” at the Heard . . The first time the series was seen here was last year a~ ~anly~. Butler Fine Art in Scottsdale . The centerpiece for the exh1b1t was Pur – ple Rose No. l.” th The series
WASHING TON -As a Supreme Court justice , Sandra D. O’Connor was expected to draw special attention. She is doing so for an unusual reason: for the things she is not doing. She is declining to participate in court cases at a higher rate than any other justice. Her pattern of frequent self-disqualification appears to be well set after less than six weeks on the bench . So far, the court has held full-scale hearings on 38 cases, and O’Connor stayed off the bench for five of them. That rate of so-called “refusal” is especially high. She also has refused to participate in 18 other cases the court has handled. Following the custom that nearly every justice has adopted, she has refused to explain the disqualifications. The court announces the fact that a justice is out of a case, but usually nothing else is said about it, on or off the record. As in O’Connor’s recent actions, there has been no hint that any disqualifications involved anything illegal or improper. The issue arose fresh for O’Connor last week after her lawyer husband, John J . O’Connor III, signed on as a partner with a Washington law firm. His search for a partnership here apparently involved efforts to avoid an affiliation that would complicate his wife’s judicial life. A member of the firm of Miller & Chevalier said there had been some discussion about how few cases the firm handles in the Supreme Court. It would be automatic for the justice to stay out of any appeal involving her husband ‘s firm . All federal judges
Former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Renz Jennings is one Phoenix lawyer who isn’t thrilled that Sandra O’Connor has been elevated to the U.S. Supreme . Court. He doesn’t like her. In 1978, Jennin_gs, by then having returned lo private practice, stood m open court as O’Connor, the trial Judge, told Jennings’ client that Jennings was representing him so poorly that he should get a new lawyer. Not content lo stop there, O’Connor reportedly complained to the state bar disciplinary board that Jennings then 79 years old, was senile and should be remov~d from practice. “For Sandra to do that took a lot of gumption,” says Barry Silverman, a Maricopa County commissioner who was then a prosecutor assigned to O’Connor’s court. “Jennings’ problem – missing deadlines, mishandling cases – was something all of us had winked at. But here was a trial court judge publicly declaring that a former supreme court judge was incompetent.” Sandra O’Connor’s record is that of a woman who winks at nothing. Often that has made her formal even rigid,, in demeanor. But more often, and more iinporlant, 1_t has made her a strong, sometimes gutsy judge who rigidly respects the legal process and is intolerant of those who take it less seriously. Ask defense lawyer Lionel Estrada. “She embarrassed me terribly,” he says, referring to a case in which O’Connor sentenced his client to 30 to 50 years for rape and sodomy and then vacated the conviction because Estrada had, she said, handled the case incompetently.
TEMPE – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will be the keynote speaker Nov. 27 at a College of Law conference at Arizona State University, ASU officials have announced. The conference is designed to hear findings of a six-month ASU study of the state’s municipal and justice court system. Justice O’Connor’s speech is entitled “Don’t Just Stand There,” and is expected to urge state lawmakers to take action on improvements in lower courts.
TEMPE (AP ) – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court will be the keynote speaker Nov. 27 at a College of Law conference at Arizona State University, the school announced Wednesday. The conference is designed to hear findings of a six-month ASU study of the state’s municipal and justice court system . Justice O’Connor’s speech is entitled , “Don’t Just Stand There,” and is expected to urge state lawmakers to take action on improvements in lower courts . Others listed speakers include state senators Jones Osborn, Jim Kolbe and Leo Corbet; Presiding Judge William J. Carter of the Phoenix City Court and Jon M. Memmott, research director of the Utah Legislature .
A black tie event honoring the new U.S. Supreme Court Justi ce Sandra O’Connor at the Heard Museum was highlighted by four paintings by Arizona artist Fritz Scholder. The ima ges in the series are a rose done in reds and purples, a simple white blossom edged in purples on a green background, a tulip in blues, yellows and grays, and a dahlia in white with green edges against an oxblood background. . . The series may be seen at Maril yn Butler Fme Art, 7157 E. Main St. , for the coming two montl-is .
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is expected to urge state lawmakers to take action on lower court reform when she addresses an Arizona State University College of Law conference Nov. 27. O’Connor will the keynote speaker for the oneday session on “Arizona’s People’s Courts: Proposals for Improvement.’ ‘ Leaders from Arizona’s political and judicial arenas will attend the conference to hear findings of a six-month ASU study of the state’s municipal and justice court system . The $48,000 study was funded by the Arizona Legislative Council, a legislative committee, with the objective of providing politically workable suggestions for lower court reform, according to study director Dr. Jo Ann G. Pedrick. Justice O’Connor’s ties to the matter go back to 1974, when she was state senator and was appointed by the Arizona Supreme Court to chair an ad hoc committee on the topic. The ASU study is a cooperative effort between the College of Law and the Center of Criminal Justice in the College of Public Programs . Study co-directors are Willard Pedrick , ASU law professor and founding Law College dean, and Dr, Peter Haynes, ASU criminal justice professor. Pedrick chairs the Arizona State Bar : Committee on Lower Courts. For the research, 91 percent of the state’s lower court judges and 78 percent of selected attorneys practicing in the system completed questionnaires. More than 125 individuals who have had cases heard in justice or city courts were interviewed by telephone. The
WASHINGTON (AP) – Like his wife, John J. O’Connor III has a new job in Washington . O’Connor , now a partner in a Phoenix law firm is moving to Washington to join the firm of Miller’ & Chevalier. His new firm says O’Connor won’t have much call to represent client s before the Supreme Court – a good thing for O’Connor and wife Sandra Day O’Connor . Mrs. O’Connor is the newest justice on the Supreme Court, and_ would have to disqualify herself from any case m which her husband was involved. O’Connor ha s been commuting from Phoenix since his wife was confirmed Sept. 21. He start s his new job Jan. 1.
On September 25, 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor raised her hand in Washington, D.C. and, within a few moments, made history as the nation’s 102nd Supreme Court justice and as the first woman ever to sit on the country’s highest tribunal. And at that moment, Stanford Law School became the first law school to seat two members of the same class on the winged bench in the Supreme Court’s colonnaded courtroom.
When President Reagan announced O’Connor’s nomination, he lauded her as “a person for all seasons.” In the days that followed, Reagan’s nominee received enthusiastic endorsement from liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike. Indeed, with the exception of ultra-conservative groups, such as The National Right to Life Committee and The Moral Majority, support for the first female justice was nationwide. An Associated Press-NBC poll revealed that 65% of the country supported O’Connor’s appointment.
When the time came for the Senate to give its crucial assessment, O’Connor was confirmed 99-0. And, with that vote, a 191-year-old tradition was broken; the brethren finally had a sister.
Who is Sandra Day O’Connor? What unique set of experiences and circumstances guided her walk into history? What will her appointment mean for the Court?
Shortly after O’Connor’s nomination was announced a Presidential aide involved in the search for the first woman justice observed: “She [O’Connor] really made it easy. She was the right age, had the right philosophy, the right combination of experience,
W ASHINGTON – After a while, you begin to wonder , why we get ourselves into suqi a state every time we make a breakthrough that should have come years before. It makes no sense. The most significant thing about wai<:hing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sitting at the far enl of the U.S. Supreme Court bench he(e Monday was that it all seemed so perfectly natural. justice O'Connor wore the same type of black robe that the other eight jualices wore. Her questions were every bit as probing. Her demeanor wu every bit as serious. If anything, th• new justice appeared even more ~ive in her pursuit of details, more interested in the cases up for con1ideration than some veteran me)n.bers of the court - who sat back and let her do the probing. With its marble pillars, red velvet baekdrop, heavy wooden benches and wine-colored carpets, the Supreme ' Thursday, November 12, 1981 Tom Fitzpatrick Court is more than a little impressive. Each time the court goes into session, long lines form. Lawyers from all parts of the country, law students and tourists wait patiently outside the building, hoping to gain entrance to the limited and always packed seating area. Monday was no exception. The mood of the court was somber. The case under consideration was a death penalty given to a 16-year-old by an Oklahoma court. The question that brought the case of Monty Lee Eddings this far was whether the imposition of the death penalty on a 16-year-old constituted "cruel and unusual punishment."
FORMER ARIZONA Supreme Court Justice Renz Jennings is one Phoenix lawyer who isn’t thrilled that Sandra O’Connor has been elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court. He doesn’t like her. In 1978, Jennings, by then having returned to private Is Actually One Tough Cookie practice, stood in open court as O’Connor, the trial judge, told Jennings’ client that Jennings was representing him so poorly that he should get a new lawyer. Not content to stop there, O’Connor reportedly complained to the state bar disciplinary hoard that Jennings, then 79 years old, was senile and should be removed from practice.
“For Sandra lo do that took a lot of gumption,” says Barry Silverman, a Maricopa County commissioner who was then a prosecutor assigned to O’Connor’s court. “Jennings’ problem – missing deadlines, mishandling cases – was something all of us had winked at. But here was a trial court judge publicly declaring that a former supreme court judge was incompetent.”
Sandra O’Connor’s record is that of a woman who winks at nothing. Often that has made her formal, even rigid, in demeanor. But more often, and more important, it has made her a strong, sometimes gutsy judge who rii;- idly respects the legal process and is intolerant of those who take it less seriously.
Spurred by references in the national media to her supposedly limited credentials and to the middling ratings she had been given in local bar association surveys, I went to Phoenix the month before O’Connor’s confirmation expecting to
Reagan Appoints First Woman to U.S. Supreme Court
WASHINGTON , D. C.- Next week (October 5) the U .S . Supreme Court will-for the first time-gain a woman ‘s touch . After 191 years and 101 male members, the Court is expected to welcome Sandra Day O’Connor as an Associate Justice. President Reagan has appointed her to take the place of Justice Potter Stewart , who retired . The President’ s nomination of Judge O’Connor , which came last July, fulfilled a campaign promise. But President Reagan made it clear that keeping the promise wasn’t his main reason for the appointment. “[I did not pledge] I would appoint a woman merely to do so,” he told reporters . ” Rather , I pledged to appoint a woman who meets the very high standards I demand of all Court appointees .” ‘Smart, Fair’ At the age of 5 I, Sandra O’Con – nor comes to the Supreme Court with a distinguished background . She grew up on her parents’ Lazy B ranch in Arizona but went to private school in El Paso, Tex . During summers, she says, she went back to the ranch and “fixed windmills and repaired fences .” At the age of 17 she entered Stanford University and graduated with honors . She finished Stanford Law School among the top ten in her class. Judge O’Connor was married shortly after graduating from law school to John Jay O’Connor, also a lawyer . They have three sons. From 1965 through 1968 she served as assistant attorney general of Arizona. Then she was elected to the state senate and became senate majority leader
PHOENIX (AP) – U.S. Postal inspectors and Secret Service agents are investigating the mailing this week of dozens of letters, most containing a bullet taped to a picture of President Reagan. A postal inspector in Phoenix, R.D. Kanoy, said the letters are almost identical to a batch sent out in July, allegedly by a Scottsdale man. They were addressed to several Phoenix judges, some U.S. congressmen, Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., and several newspapers, including the Scottsdale paily Progress. Mailing explosives is a federal crime, pwiishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. The author of the latest letters listed a return address of a Tucson post office box and said they were from “Mr. A. Melvin McDonald,” officials said. McDonald is U.S. Attorney for Arizona. The Scottsdale man who allegedly sent similar letters did so in an apparant attempt to be readmitted to the Air Force after being discharged because of mental problems , Kanoy said. The latest three-page letters included a photocopied photo of Supreme Court Justice Sandra D. O’Connor appears to be dripping blood, The Tucson Citizen said. The words “Kill Ronald Reagan” were coming from her mouth. Blood also was shown dripping from a photo of Reagan, with a .22 caliber bullet taped to his chin.
At the age of 24, Scott O’Connor will bring both youth and experience to the town of Paradise Valley Planning and Zoning Commission. He was recently appointed to serve on the commission by the Town Council. O’Connor, who grew up in the town, said he knows the community well and believes he can do a good job. He also is “glad to be a part of the group” and does not believe his youth will be a problem. O’Connor said he hopes he does not “come off as seeming like a smart aleck young kid” and added that he appreciates the time the other commission members have put in and their experience. O’Connor will attend his first meeting when the planning commission meets at 7 tonight in the Town Hall, 6401 E. Lincoln Drive. O’Connor noted that he has a “fairly good sense of the town.” He is proud of the town’s preservation of open space and hillsides and the “quality of development” in the community. O’Connor also believes in maintaining the town’s “residential character.” He moved to the area as an infant with his parents John and Sandra Day O’Connor. His mother recently became the first woman to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. O’Connor attended Phoenix Country Day School, Brophy Preparatory …
[Photo caption: SCOTT O’CONNOR, 24, will be the youngest member present at tonight’s meeting of the town of Paradise Valley Planning and Zoning Commission. O’Connor is the son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor. ]
Supreme Court J ustice Sandr a Day O’Connor received a new addition to her wardrobe this week. The chemise in question is a T -shirt depicting one woman justice and her eight male colleagues. T he capt ion under the group reads: “One down, eight to go.” Thirty students at the Woman’s Law Caucus of Northern Kent ucky University’s Chase Law School sent the i,hirt to O’Connor. In reply, she wrote, “The T-shirt is terrific. Forgive me if I don’t wear it around my colleagues just yet, but it will be nice to get some female companions m the future.”
WASHINGTON (AP) – Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is refusing to participate in three of the 11 cases argued during the first week of the court’s 1981-82 term. The newest justice has disqualified herself from the three cases, a member of her staff said Friday, but Justice O’Connor will not say why she stepped aside. The three cases – involving insurance law, worker compensation and federal election financing, are to be decided by next June or July. Federal law and a judicial code of conduct requires federal judges to remove themselves from cases in which it might appear they have a conflict of interest. There are no hard rules for most such disqualifications. Many are left up to individual conscience. But a 1974 law requires disqualification from cases in which a judge has any direct financial interest, no matter how small. From information supplied by Justice O’Connor to the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearings last month, no financial reason for disqualification is apparent. Justice O’Connor told the committee she. would disqualify herself from all cases in which her husband ‘s Phoenix law firm “had ever participated as legal counsel for a party concerning the matter.”
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 – This much is known so far about Sandra Day O’Connor: She is cool under pressure; she suffers fools gracefully; she has a sense of humor.
So far, this much can be predicted: She will need her sense of humor. The words “first woman Justice” are already cemented as firmly to her name as “reclusive billionaire” and “fugitive financier” were to the names of Howard R. Hughes and Robert L. Vesco.
Ordinarily articulate people seem to be rendered silly by the linguistic implications of a woman’s arrival at the Supreme Court. Since “the brethren” is now obsolete as a collective noun, what to do? “Eight brethren and a cistern,” was the suggestion offered, publicly, by a speaker who introduced Justice O’Connor the other night at the Washington Press Club.
If Justice O’Connor read her press clippings after the Court’s opening session this week, a random sample of news accounts would have told her that she arrived on the bench “dressed in a black, knee-length judicial gown,” that she was “looking small but undaunted behind the long, low bench,” that she put on a pair of glasses, and that she asked her first question 48 minutes into the opening argument “to show she was there to take a full part in the Court’s work.”
A Memory of Samuel Johnson
As the press clippings indicate, the tone of the welcome that Justice O’Connor has received in Washington has been more than a little reminiscent of Samuel Johnson’s remark 218 years ago about the similarity between a “woman’s
WASHINGTON (UPI) – Sandra O’Connor, the Supreme Court’s first woman justice, disqualified herself from three of the 15 cases argued before the court during her first three days on the bench.
Following court custom, Judge O’Connor gave no reason for excusing herself from the cases that were the subject of oral arguments, court spokesman Barrett McGurn said Wednesday.
It is not uncommon for a justice to occasionally disqualify himself from a case, possibly because of a conflict of interest. But three disqualifications by the same judge in three days is highly unusual.
McGurn said: “The tradition is not to state a reason – just to step aside. There are a variety of reasons why justices stand aside, sometimes because of old law firm associations or some other personal contact or other.”
Before joining the court, Judge O’Connor was an Arizona state appeals court judge. Before that, she was the Republican leader of the Arizona state Senate. Her husband practices law in Phoenix.
One of the three cases Judge O’Connor did not sit on the bench for involves an effort by Common Cause to get the court to uphold a $1,000 limit on spending by independent political action committees to support a candidate who accepts public money for his campaign.
It pits Common Cause, a self-styled “citizens’ I lobby,” and the Federal Elections Commission against Sen. Harrison Schmitt, R-N.M., and three political action committees that backed President Reagan.
In her first major public action as a Supreme
WASHINGTON (AP) – It was a dramatic moment in American history the first time a woman has served on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court – but Sandra Day O’Connor handled it with the same aplomb she exhibited during her Senate confirmation hearings. As the court began its new term Monday, the 51-year-old former Arizona appeals court judge showed no reluctance in making her public debut as a working Supreme Court justice. Her first inquiry from the bench – regarding a complex offshore oil and natural gas leasing case – came little more than a half hour into the first oral argument. “Mr. Silard, may I ask a question ?” Justice O’Connor said at 10: 46 a.m, John Silard, arguing on behalf of the Energy Action Educational Foundation, already had asked several other justices to delay their questions until he finished a point. He did the same with the court’s 102nd justice, saying: “Just a minute, your honor.” After answering a previous question from the bench, Silard invited O’Connor to proceed. “It isn’t clear, is it, that even if California wins here, that the secretary (of the Interior) would use the bidding system California prefers,” she asked. “The secretary would still be free to use other experiments.” Her question referred to California’s bid in the case to obtain an offshore oil and natural gas leasing system that would yield greater revenue for the state. The views of the educational foundation Silard represents are essentially the same as those held by the state of California.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday refused to review lower court decisions barring voluntary prayer at “optional” assemblies in the Chandler Unified School District south of Phoenix. Chandler High School Principal Howard Conley said he was disappointed by the decision. “I would suppose this is the end of the prayer issue. You can’t go any higher than the Supreme Court. We’ll certainly abide by the Supreme Court,” he said. The high court, by refusing to review the case, upheld a 1979 court ruling. Prayers were prohibited on constitutional grounds by U.S. District Judge Carl A. Muecke, who cited a 1962 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed school sponsorship of prayers. Muecke’s ruling was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court last May. The Chandler controversy originated in 1978 when Theresa Collins, the mother of two students, challenged the school’s practice of allowing the student council to open school assemblies with a prayer. The practice of opening the morning assemblies with voluntary prayer went on at the school from at least 1976-77, when Conley took over as principal, to March 1979 when the District Court made its ruling. Conley said he thought the Supreme Court might allow the prayers in Chandler High School because of the “different way” they were presented at the school. Prayers were given during non-mandatory assemblies by decision of the students, he said. “Our assemblies are organized, developed and administered by students. “It was not a state prayer, Methodist
WASHINGTON (AP) – Sandra Day O’Connor, in her public debut as a working Supreme Court Justice, wasted little time Monday in asking her first question from the high court bench. “Mr. Silard, may I ask a question?” the court’s first woman member said at 10:46 a.m., a little more than one-half hour into the first oral argument of the new term. John Silard, arguing a complex offshore oil and natural gas leasing case on behalf of the Energy Adion Educational Foundation, shot back: “Just a minute, your honor.” Silard, who also had asked several other justices to hold up on questions while he finished a point, went on to complete his answer to a previous question ltom the bench. Then he beckoned to Justice O’Connor, who said “It isn’t .clear, is it, that even if California wins here, that the secretary (of the Interior) would use the bidding system California prefers. The secretary would still be free to use other experiments.” Her query referred to California’a bid in the case to obtain an offshore oil and natural gas leasing system that would yield greater revenue for the state. Silard, Waving his finger in the air at Mrs. O’Connor to make his points, then elaborated at length on the various leasing systems available Without specifically agreeing or disagreeing with Mrs. O’Connor’s line of reasoning.
After several questions from other justices, Silard wound up his argument by looking directly at Justice O’Connor and saying he hoped the court’s decision would grant “a new life to
WASHINGTON (AP) – Sandra Day O’Connor , in her public debut as a working Supreme Court Justice, wasted little time Monday in asking her first question from the high court bench . “Mr. Silard, may I ask a question?” the court’s first woman member said at 10:46 a .m. , a little more than one-half hour into the first oral argument of the new term . John Silard, arguing a complex offshore oil and natural gas leasing case on behalf of the Energy Action Educational Foundation, shot back : “Just a minute, your honor .” Silard , who also had asked several other justices to hold up on their questions while he finished a point, went on to complete his answer to a previous question from the bench. Then he beckoned to Justice O’Connor . “It isn’t clear, is it, that even if California wins here, that the secretary (of the Interior) would use the bidding system California prefers?” she asked. “The secretary would still be free to use other experiments.” Her question referred to California’s bid in the case to obtain an offshore oil and natural gas leasing system that would yield greater revenue for the state . Silard, waving his finger in the air at Mrs. O’Connor to make his points, then elaborated at length on the various leasing systems available without ever specifically agreeing or disagreeing with Mrs. O’Connor’s line of reasoning . After several questions from other justices , Silard wound up his argument by looking directly a t Justice O’ Connor and saying he hoped the court’s decision
WASHINGTON – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, newly sworn in as the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, picked a gathering of reporters for her initial step into the Washington social scene, accepting an invitation to swear in Carol Richards of Gannett News Service as the new president of the Washington Press Club – a club, by the way, which didn’t allow any men as members until 10 years ago.
Everything was moving along smoothly until the afternoon of the event when a White House staffer called Richards to report that Justice O’Connor was “quite adamant” that her remarks at the gathering be off the record – despite the fact that she was invited as “guest speaker” for an audience of more than 300 working journalists. The White House aide said he would do his best to get her to change her mind but a short time later called back to say the judge “simply has to go off the record.”
Before the program got under way, Richards tried to strike a compromise, suggesting that Justice O’Connor put part of her remarks on the record “just to give these people something to report,” and then go off the record for the remainder of her comments. But the judge said absolutely not.
Interestingly, her speech was brief, light and humorous – hardly the substantive, candid stuff of most off-the-records.
Rep. Barber Conable, R-N.Y., the master of ceremonies, also tried – and failed – to change Justice O’Connor’s mind, but his conversation with her may explain her reasoning.
“This is not a smart
No sooner than Sandra Day O’Connor won confirmation by the Sena te than she said she plans to be ” ver y bus y, very fast ,” after she is sworn in later this week . Well, I should hope to kiss a cow. After nearly 200 years, this male bas – tion can use the services of a woman . Oh, I doubt the other eigh t Supreme Court justices will allow her to take part in any judical proceedings because , after all , she is a woman . Hut, idle hands are the Devil ‘s pla y”ma tc, and that ‘s an adage that has ~ell stood the test of time . So I would as sume that her offic e would include kitchen facilities , wher e ,’w could whip up some sn,1cks to ser ve at a cot1ee break for her deliberating eolh•..igUl’S fte r all , ju st ice travels on its stomach. as the saying goes. Justice O’Connor could also earn her money by dusting off the law books and performing other household chores around the court. And, I would strongly suggest Sandra take a course in shorthand so that she can take the minutes of the meetings , and read them back for corrections, additions, and deletions at the next meeting. Speaking of earn ing her mone y, I can only hope the y are not going to pay her as much as they do the male jus tices . A r ecent government survey showed that women , in general receive only 60 as much money as males for doing the same job. Tha t should not surpr ise an ybody, because that ‘s as it should be, and all men will dri nk to tha t. So, I propose Justice O’ Connor re cieve 60 percent of the
High court won’t review death term in Tison case Appeals not exhausted for Randy Greenawalt The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to review the conviction and death sentence of Randy Greenawalt in the case of a Yuma family shotgunned to death during a gang rampage in 1978. Justice Sandra O’Connor of Phoenix, on her first day as an associat,e justice of the Supreme Court, joined the 7-2 majority that declined to review the case. Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall dissented. Greenawalt’s attorney, Robert C. Brown of Casa Grande, said the appeal process is not over. Greenawalt still can take his appeal to the high court by appealing through lower federal courts. Brown said he had not talked with Greenawalt but assumed the appeal would be pursued. Greenawalt and Ricky and Raymond Tison were sentenced to death in 1979 for the murders of Marine Sgt. John F. Lyons; his wife, Donnelda; his 22-month-old son Christopher; and his niece, Teresa Jo Marie Tyson of Las Vegas, Nev. The four were killed aft.er Raymond, Ricky and their brother, Donald, helped their father, Gary, and Greenawalt escape from Arizona State Prison on July 30, 1978. The Tison gang committed the murders north of Yuma to obtain the Lyons’ car after the gang’s car had been disabled. Donald Tison was killed in a shootout near Casa Grande on Aug. 11, 1978. His father died of exposure in the desert while trying to elude pursuers. Brown said Greenawalt’s appeal was based on more than 20 legal questions including
In her first day as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra O’Connor of Phoenix joined the majority in declining to review the death sentence of convicted Arizona murderer Randy Greenawalt, a court spokesman said. …
Mark Henning, banker, Phoenix
My heroine is Sandra O’Connor. I’ve read so much about her since her nomination to the Supreme Court, and she really persevered to get where she is today. I read that when she got out of law school and applied for a job, she was offered a secretarial position. Imagine that.
Where does the Senate, the Moral Majority or anyone get their nerve to insist that an appointee to the Supreme Court or to any position has to agree with them on every issue whether it be abortion or anything else? The deficiencies in our form of government were obvious after witnessing the extreme pressure put on Sandra O’Connor from a bunch of idiots who insist that everyone has to think their way. And these people were appointed by us to preserve our rights and freedoms!
HAIG LORDIGYAN Paradise Valley
WASHINGTON – Sandra Day O’Connor today served her first working day on the bench as the first woman on the United States Supreme Court. The 51-year-old former Arizona appeals court judge, state court trial judge and Arizona Senate majority leader, took her oath of office Sept. 25. She promised then to be “very busy, very fast” and spent last week reviewing cases with the court’s other justices. But today was her first working day on the bench hearing arguments. Justice O’Connor – as she will be addressed by her eight brethren on the nation’s highest court – occupies the seat traditionally taken by the court’s most junior justice, to the far right of the bench u viewed from the courtroom. After Mrs . O’Connor’s swearing-in ceremony, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger announced that she would take over the supervisory duties of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. Mrs. O’Connor was confirmed by the Senate Sept. 21 In a victory both for her and for Ronald Reagan the first president to nomirmte a woman to the Supreme Court. Although there had been considerable debate before the confirmation vote, particularly on Mrs. O’Connor’s previous position on abortion, when the day came she was approved unanimously .
The hottest ticket in town next month is likely to be one for the shindig Gov. Bruce Babbitt is tossing for Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor Nov. 25 at the Arizona Biltmore. About 2,000 invitations have been sent out for the black-tie gala, but only 850 can be accepted. It is a first-come, first-seated affair, and letters of regret have already been prepared for those not acting fast enough. Organizers of the banquet are privately hoping President Reagan sends regards only and stays m Washington for the holidays. The security arrangements for a presidential visit would toss a monkey wrench in the best-laid plans, which were hush-hush – until now, at least. The dinner will cap a daylong Phoenix and Arizona celebration honoring the first woman to serve on the high court. Plans are in the works for a ceremony in the state Capitol, where Justice O’Connor once served as a state senator, and a combined city of Phoenix and Junior League luncheon at the Lath House, which is next to the Rosson House in Heritage Square.
Editor:
I could not help but think of Arizona’s Sandra O’Connor and how she must have felt, honored by the president of the United States, a Rose Garden reception, and a White House luncheon. This great and most deserved honor, could only be topped by the endorsement of the great Jerry Falwell. Personally, I would rather be bitten by a Cobra. MEL WILLIAMS Mesa
WASHINGTO N – When the Supreme Court begins its 1981-82 term Oct. 5, it will ag, n find itself poised on the cuttmg edge between the status quo and a new political order. As the Reagan administration moves to reduce the sweep of much of the landmark legislation enacted in the 1960s and 1970s, the court will review many of those same laws in the 102 cases already set for argument in the new term. The justices also are likely to address a number of perennially touchy issues, including school busing, church-state separation, the death penalty and the obligation of a state to educate children of illegal aliens. President Reagan’s policies are not directly at issue in most of the cases, but the way in which the justices resolve the issues could accelerate or brake the administration’s momentum in certain areas. Historically, the court has served as a balance wheel within the federal system . It has moved to the “conservative ” side when Congress or the president shifted sharply to the left, as in the early New Deal days. And the rulings in the last term indicate the court may be taking a more liberal stance on certain issues as the Reagan administration and the 97th Congress move to the right. For example, in the last term, the justices ruled repeatedly in favor of broad federal regulatory power – directly countering a major administration thrust . The Reagan regime already has sharply reversed the government ‘s position on two key issues before the court , school busing and the education
Sandra O’Connor, formally resigning from the Arizona Court of Appeals, attributed her appointment as the first woman U.S. Supreme Court justice to Gov. Bruce Babbitt and the women “of yesterday and today.” O’Connor, whose nomination to the Supreme Court was confirmed 99-0 by the Senate Sept. 21, resigned, effective immediately, in a letter submitted to Babbitt. She recalled Babbitt, a Democrat, appointed her to the Appeals Court on Dec. 4, 1979 and said she doubted she would have received the Supreme Court nomination had it not been for that appointment. “You appointed me to the office I now leave,” she told Babbitt. “You appointed me not only despite the [act that we belong to two different political parties, but fully aware that my appointment did not seem politic to certain of your advisors. “I believe I would not have been named to the United States Supreme Court unless I had been a sitt_ing appellate court judge. Thus, but for your action, I would today be a Superior Court judge in Maricopa County rather than a United State Supreme Court justice in Washington. “If, indeed I will walk across the pages of history, then you played a most vital role in starting me on my journey. I thank you for that start.” O’Connor, a Superior Court judge from 1975 until she was appointed by Babbitt to the Appeals Court said she was accepting her new position and resigning from old one with mixed emotions. “I have been greatly honored by my appointment to the Supreme Court,” she said. “I have
BOSTON – Last Friday, Sandra O’Connor joined The Brethren. And an elite sisterhood . Last Friday, Sandra O’Connor became the 102nd Supreme Court Justice . And the rirst woman Justice. As all the speeches about barrier-breaking, history-making, inner-circle-integrating end. she is settling down to two of the hardest roles in the cowitry: Supreme Court Justice and First Woman. IN SOME WAYS, this woman who won her robe with the unanimous consent of thf – ate and the goodwill of the people, wi1 ” approval of conservatives and the best wishe:. of the women’s rights activists, faces the issues shared by any woman who has ever been the first, the exception, the only, the other . How do you deal with the extra burdens? How do you live with the attention and the expectations? With the demands of conscience and history? O’Connor wants to be remembered as a good Justice, but she will be judged, in large part, as a Woman Justice . Her opinions will be scrutinized for signs of her sex; her behavior will be analyzed for clues of her kind . Like every other first woman , she will be visible and vulnerable, the one Justice in the photograph whom everyone can name . She will be criticized if she doesn’t ” think like a male Justice” and criticized if she does . Someone will surely want her to prove that a woman on the bench makes a difference, and someone else will want her to prove that women on the bench are no different It is, as Margaret Hennig, dean of the Graduate School of Business Management
WASHINGTON (AP) -Somewhere, logic got lost in the debate over Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s appointment to the Supreme Court. She is, after all, a conservative Republican, her conservative detractors notwithstanding. She takes to the court a conservative’s reverence for precedent and letterof-the Constitution-interpretation of the law. Yet conservatives who claim to share that philosophy were critical of her nomination, and some remained skeptical even as they joined in unanimous Senate confirmation of the first woman justice. Single-issue politics-in this case, the issue was abortion-can distort a debate that way. AFTER failing to get Mrs. O’Connor’s assurance that she would act to …
proximately 200 years of the court, has been accurately able to predict what a justice of the Supreme Court would be like,” said Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., DDel. Biden said the debate unfolded as it did because nowadays it is liberals, not conservatives, who want strict constructionists on the federal bench. That’s because liberals do not want to overturn decisions of the Warren Court. He said what Helms and his conservative allies really want is activist judges. “If Judge O’Connor is not an activist, she has problems , because she is not going to be overturning the decisions that they-and I on occasion-sometimes find odious, obnoxious or totally reprehensible, ” said Biden, who also opposes the abortion decision. Judicial conservatism and political conservatism , particularly that of the New Right
A ccording to Sandra O’Connor, the first woman justice of the Supreme Court, “a court’s duty is to interpret laws and test them against the constitution – not to usurp the duties of the legislative and executive branches.” Similarly, this newspaper’s role in the community is to report facts and opinions which reflect the wide spectrwn of interests. Our industry is referred to as a fourth estate, a quasi branch of gov~rnment. Thomas Jefferson went so far as to say, “Given a choice between a government .without a newspaper or a newspaper without a government, I would not hesitate for a moment to choose the latter.” !o fulfill our community responsibility of reporting the news, this newspaper must be accessible both to low-profile groups and the community movers and shakers. !he. ~irst group, which includes the elderly, handicapped, mmorities, youth, and the unborn, often do not get a fair shake because they have difficulty obtaining access to media sources. In contrast, the movers and shakers have no difficulty with media access and are heard from often. In the interest of fairness, I feel it is our responsibility to assist as o~ten ~s we c~ th~e ~orities which find it difficult to get a public voice. This attitude IS part of our commwlity responsibility and does not represent a preference on our part for any particular group or organization.
Last Friday , Sandra O’Connor j(,>ined The Brethren. And an elite sisterhood. Last Friday, Sandra O’Connor became the 102nd Supreme Court Justice. And the first woman Justice. As. all the speeehes about barrierbreaking, history-makiRg, inner-circle-integrating enu, she is settling down to two of the hardest roles in the country: Supreme Court Justice and First Woman. In some ways, this woman who won her robe with the unanimous consent of the Senate and the goodwill of the people, with the approval of conservatives and the best wishes of the women’s rights activists, faces the issues shared by any woman who has ever been the first, the exception, the only, the other. How do you deal with the extra burdens? How do you live with the attention and the expectations? With the demands of conscience and history? Fine service O’Connor wants to be remembered as a good justice, but she will be judged, in large part, as a Woman Justice. Her opinions will be scrutinized for signs of her sex; her behavior will be analyzed for clues of her kind. Like every other first woman, she will be visible and vulnerable, the one justice in the photograph whom everyone can name. She will be criticized if she doesn’t “think like a male justice” and criticized if she does. Someone will surely want her to prove that a woman on the bench makes a difference, and someone else will want her to prove that women on the bench are no different. It is, as Margaret Hennig, dean of the Graduate School of Business Management
WASHINGTON (AP) – Her place in American history secure, Sandra Day O’Connor gets down to work Monday, her public notoriety as the first woman on the Supreme Court giving way to the private, workaday life of her eight fellow justices. Sworn in Friday as the high court’s 102nd member, she will meet with her colleagues Monday for a week of closed-door deliberations in anticipation of the Oct. 5 opening of the 1981-82 term. Even before she joined the court, Justice O’Connor told reporters she expected to become “very busy, very fast” in trying to master the 102 cases already scheduled for full study and decision. In addition, the court on Oct. 5 is expected to issue orders – most of them grants or denials of review for appeals left pending last July or those that arrived during the summer recess – in as many as 1,000 cases. Justice O’Connor inherits three law clerks who have spent most of the summer previewing those cases. As of Friday, the three young lawyers selected nearly a year ago to spend the coming term working for now-retired Justice Potter Stewart will work for Justice O’Connor. She has hired a lawyer from her husband’s Phoenix law firm to be a fourth clerk. Justice O’Connor also inherits some direct responsibility from the man she succeeds in the lifetime post. She will serve as circuit justice for the 6th federal judicial circuit, handling emergency matters from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. Justice O’Connor is moving into the chambers used until recently by
The elevation of a woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, to the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time has sparked renewed concern as to whether women judges can be objective on the bench, particularly in dealing with such highly emotional and female-oriented issues as abortion and rape. Even the chief justice of that high court is alleged to have expressed reservations in this regard. This erroneous and presumptuous apprehension is premised on sexually stereotypical thinking which historically has permeated so much of our male-dominated culture, including the legal and judicial professions. Women judges, like those of the male sex, have the intellect, education and experience to decide the thousands of civil and criminal cases that come before them on the facts and the applicable law. Indeed, being acutely aware of their high visibility, women are particularly sensitive to their judicial role. Women judges are thus less likely than entrenched and secure male judges to indulge biases in deciding cases. It is a startling revelation that over the decades so few among us have questioned the objectivity of white Anglo-Saxon male judges who have been presiding over us all, male and female, of every color and ethnic background. Two male law professors who had the temerity to address the subject in the N.Y.U. Law Review in 1971 found, as might be expected, that male judges bring to the bench a variety of prejudices stemming from their sexual, ideological, cultural, ethnic, religious, economic
WASHINGTON – In a six-minute ceremony, Sandra Day O’Connor broke through two centuries of male exclusivity and donned her robe Friday as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. With President Reagan, her family and 500 others watching, O’Connor stood beside Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and promised to “support and defend the Constitution” and faithfully carry out her duties. “Justice O’Connor, welcome to the court,” Burger said at the conclusion of the oath. “I wish you a long life and a long and happy career in our common calling.” 9’Connor, who will be addressed by her brethren as “Justice _O’Connor” – no courtesy title – was preceded by 101 men, dating to the court’s founding in 1790. The court’s members were previously known as “Mr. Justice,” as in “Mr. Justice Stewart.” However, last November they dropped that title in favor of simply “Justice.” It was assumed that the change anticipated the naming of the first woman to the high court. . EARLIER, O’CONNOR and her husband, Pheonix attorney John J. O’Connor III, rode with the president and first lady Nancy Reagan up Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Supreme Court, just east of the Capitol. The short ceremony started late, at 2:12 p.m. Sitting across from Justice O’Connor in the front of the courtroom were the Reagans, O’Connor’s husband and O’Connor sons Scott, 23, Brian, 21, and Jay, 20. Nearby were her parents, Harry and Ada Mae Day. Next to the president was Potter Stewart, whose retirement last July
WASHINGTON – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, feeling “just great” about taking her place in history, is ready to begin work as the first woman on the Supreme Court. As President Reagan and 500 other spectators looked on, Justice Connor was sworn in Friday as the high court’s newest membei.:. On Monday, Justice O’Connor and her eight colleagues will begin a week of closed-door discussions on the more than 1,000 cases that have been building up over the summer. THE NEW JUSTICE has told reporters that she will be taking part in the conferences as the court gets ready for the Oct. 5 opening of its 1981-82 term. The court has been asked to review, among other issues, the legality of denying pre-trial freedom to all people accused of certain crimes; a state law making it a crime to “promote” non-obscene sexual performances by children; and a case that followed the death of Kerr-McGee Corp. employee Karen G. Silkwood, who was active in labor organizing efforts 1 at the plutonium plant and investigating allegedly unsafe conditions. But Friday, Justice O’Connor and her family enjoyed one last day of pomp and ceremony, capping her transition frolll an Arizo!)a appeals court judge to Supreme Court justice that began ‘ with Reagan’s announcement of her selection last July 7. WITH REAGAN and his wife, Nancy, sitting in 1 the front of the courtroom, Justice O’Connor swore her allegiance to the Constitution, and, in just a six• minute ceremony, ended a 191-year history of male exclusivity on the
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Maybe Congress could appropriate some money, Burger sugeested To some onlookers, the scene was life imitating art, a scene out of “First Monday In October .” a cur – rent comic film about the first woman justice . O’Connor, at 51, also is the youngest justice on a court dominated by men well past normal retirement age. Five of the nine justices, appointed by Presidents Dwight Eisenhower. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, are over 70. O’Connor, having won the confirmation plaudits of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate by votes of 17–0 and 99-0, will find little unanimity among her new male colleagues on the most controversial issues of the day. For years. the justices have been split, often with a sinele vote -separ ating them, on cases involving school desegregation, affirmative J action, abortion, state aid to reli- – gion, obscenity , government regula- , tion and the death penalty 1 A conservative on many issues, O’Connor is expected to make little difference in the court’s fraeile balance because she replaces the retired Potter Stewart, who voted conservatively on school busing, affirmative action, school prayer, health and safety regulations and other bitterly debated subjects .
WASHING TON (UPI) – Sandra O’Connor became the first woman on the Supreme Court Friday, pledging in a solemn and historic ceremony to defend the Constitution and “do equal right t? the ~r and to the rich.” President Reagan and an elbow-to-elbow audience of 400 people jamme~ the courtroom to watch Chief Justice Warren Burger swear in the Mrs. O’Connor as an associate justice of the nation’s highest court . “Justice O’Connor, welcome to the court,” Burger said at the conclusion of the oath. “I wish you a long life and a long and happy career in our common calling.” Earlier, Mrs. O’Connor and her husband, Pheonix attorney John J . O’Connor, rode with the president and first lady Nancy Reagan up PeMsylvania Avenue from the the White House to the Supreme Court, located just east of the Capitol. , On arriving, she went to the privacy of the . ~ustices’ oak-paneled conference room, where the j shf took a Judicial Oath from Burger. There she pledged, in part, ‘i~~P.f. justice without ~ spect to p~nmns, and do equal right to 1:/1! 911or I.Ind to fl)~ nch.” A Sl)ecial session of the high court followed, COrunencing – as always – with the sharp rap of tile gavel by Court Marshal Alfred Wong and the entrance of the black -robed justices. John Marshall more than 150 years ago. Reagan sat next to retired Justice Potter Stewart, 67, the man Mrs. O’Connor replaced in the lifetime post. Attorney General William French Smith , clad in a formal gray morning coat, presented Mrs . O’Connor’s commission
WASIIlNGTON – In a six-minute ceremony, Arizona Judge Sandra Day O’Connor broke through two centuries of male exclusivity and donned her robe Friday as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. With President Reagan, her family and 500 guests looking on, O’Connor stood beside Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and promised to “support and defend the Constitution” and faithfully carry out her duties. “On behalf of all the members of the court and retired Justice Potter Stewart, it is a pleasure to extend to you a very wann welcome to the court and to wish you a very long life and a long and happy career in our common calling,” Burger said in welcoming the court’s newest member and its first woman. O’Connor, who will be addressed by her brethren as “Justice O’Connor” – no courtesy title – was preceded by 101 men, dating to the court’s founding in 1790. Sitting across from Justice O’Connor in the front of the courtroom were President and Nancy Reagan, her husband, Phoenix lawyer John J. O’Connor III, and sons Scott, 23, Brian, 21, and Jay, 20. There, too, were her parents, Harry and Ada Mae Day. She earlier had told news reporters that she felt “just great” about taking “‘ler place in history. ceremony began as O’Connor, 51, entered the courtroom shortly after 2 p.m. and sat m front of her eight colleagues-to-be in the 19th~entury chair once occupied by Chief Justice John Marshall, whose decisions secured the position of the Supreme Court in American government. Attorney General William
She’s been called “extraordinary,” “outstanding,” “truly outstanding” and “the best thing since Girl Scout cookies.” Speechmakers in the Senate called her appointment “historic,” “truly historic,” “a landmark,” “monumental.” It is just possible that sometimes Sandra D. O’Connor may not recognize the woman she reads about and sees on television so often these days. That is because her history and her testimony during her confirmation hearings suggest that she has arrived where she is by being relatively uncontroversial, by being low-keyed, by appreciating the fine detail rather than the cosmic sweep, by keeping out of trouble, rather than by making trouble. Her achievements have been solid. But no one who knows them calls them brilliant or inspired. In that respect, she is no different than many other appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court. And if she follows the example of many of them, it may be that she will not be heard from in any dramatic way for some time. She may burrow into the marble palace for months or years before making a mark. Then again, she could begin in a burst of glory. But that would not be her way. The court, the late Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone once said, is “nine quiet old boys.” Make that eight quiet men and one probably very quiet woman. She appeared uncomfortable at the beginning. When she first came to town, she seemed visibly stunned, even a bit shaken, by all the attention she was getting. “I’ve never seen so many reporters, cameras, all in one
Sandra Day O’Connor took her seat today as the 102nd Justice and the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.
President Reagan, who fulfilled a campaign promise to name a woman to the Court by nominating the 51-year-old Arizona judge, attended the brief ceremony in the courtroom. It was the first time a President had visited the Supreme Court since President Ford attended Associate Justice John Paul Stevens’ swearing-in ceremony in 1975.
President Reagan and Judge O’Connor entered the courtroom simultaneously but from opposite sides a few minutes past 2 o’clock. Judge O’Connor was escorted to a ceremonial chair, in the well of the courtroom below the bench, that was used in the Court’s early years by Chief Justice John Marshall. The eight members of the Court took their seats on the bench moments later. Spectators Fill Courtroom
The ceremony, formally known as an investiture, lasted barely 10 minutes. The courtroom was filled well beyond its 400-seat capacity with Judge O’Connor’s family and friends and with Government officials, including a number of Senators. The Senate confirmed Judge O’Connor on Tuesday by a vote of 99 to 0.
Potter Stewart, whose retirement from the Court in July paved the way for today’s event, watched from a seat at the side of the courtroom.
Attorney General William French Smith presented to the Court the official document, signed by President Reagan, commissioning Judge O’Connor as an Associate Justice. Alexander L. Stevas, clerk of the
WASHINGTON (AP) – In a six-minute ceremony, Sandra Day O’Connor broke through two centuries of male exclusivity and donned her robe Friday as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. With President Reagan, her family and 500 other guests looking on, Mrs. O’Connor stood beside Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and promised to “support and defend the Constitution” and faithfully carry out her duties. “On behalf of all the members of the court and retired Justice Potter Stewart, it is a pleasure to extend to you a very warm welcome to the court and to wish you a very long life and a long and happy career in our common calling,” Burger said in welcoming the court’s newest member and its first woman. Mrs. O’Connor, who will be ad dressed by her brethren as “Justice O’Connor” – no courtesy title – was preceded by 101 men, dating to the court’s founding in 1790. The ceremony got under way late, at 2:12 p.m., and was over six minutes later. Sitting across from Justice O’Connor in the front of the courtroom were President and Nancy Reagan; her husband, Phoenix lawyer John J. O’Connor III; and sons Scott, 23, Brian, 21, and Jay, 20. There, too, were her parents, Harry and Ada Mae Day. Next to the president was retired Justice Stewart, whose retirement last July 3 opened the way for Reagan to keep his campaign promise to nominate the first woman to the high court. She had earlier told news reporters that she felt “just great” about taking her place in history. The ceremony began as Mrs.
WASHINGTON – The consensus was that Sandra Day O’Connor’s judicial robe, black and simple, was simply too short . The robe, one from her days as an Arizona Appeals Court judge, demurely covered the knee. But observers – read that the cynical members of the Washington press corps – judged the robe as too short for a member of the nation’s highest court. For one thing, the robe was just a hair shorter than her dress, allowing a fraction of her pink hem to peek from beneath the austere garment. Secondly, the robe looked strangely mini as Justice O’Connor posed for pictures with her family, President and Mrs. Reagan and Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and his wife, Elvera. In contrast, Burger looked immensely judicial. His sweeping black robe comes to midcalf.
