Law review article

Managing Courts in Changing Times

Law review article / By

KEYNOTE ADDRESS (Executive Summary)

Hon. Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice.

The Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor’s speech “examine[s] how to strengthen court management’s contribution to the performance of the American judicial system.” (O’Connor, 1). She indicates that “the amount – and the quality – of justice in this country are determined in large measure by the day-to-day workings of our trial courts –far away from the Supreme Court and, in fact, from most appellate courts generally.” (O’Connor, 1). Calling the administration of justice the “great cement of society,” Justice O’Connor quotes Alexander Hamilton from The Federalist Papers, noting that the courts “give stability and ordered growth to the social and economic environment in which we do our work and live our lives.” (O’Connor, 1).

To refresh the administration of justice, and to tackle the big questions involved in planning the future of the American justice system, Justice O’Connor recognizes the importance of taking time away from the busy pace of court management. “Conferences such as this one provide each of us with the opportunity to step temporarily away from the relentless day-to-day pressure of coping with change and to consider how we want our courts to deal with changing times, or, in other words, how to prepare ourselves – and our courts—for the future.” (O’Connor, 2). She predicts that “what we do today to shape our courts and to shape the principles by which we manage them will determine how they perform

Law review article

Lessons from the Third Sovereign: Indian Tribal Courts

Law review article / By

Today, in the United States, we have three types of sovereign entities-the Federal government, the States, and the Indian tribes. Each of the three sovereigns has its own judicial system, and each plays an important role in the ad ministration of justice in this country. The part played by the tribal courts is expanding. As of 1992, there were about 170 tribal courts, with jurisdiction encompassing a total of perhaps one million Americans.

Most of the tribal courts that exist today date from the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.1 Before the Act, tribal judicial systems were based around the Courts of Indian Offenses, which were established in the 1880’s by the federal Office of Indian Affairs. Passage of the Indian Reorganization Act allowed the tribes to organize their governments, by drafting their own constitutions, adopting their own laws through tribal councils, and setting up their own court systems. By that time, however, enormous disruptions in customary Native American life had been wrought by factors such as forced migration, settlement on the reservations, the allotment system, and the imposition of unfamiliar Anglo American institutions. Consequently, in 1934, most tribes had only a dim memory of traditional dispute resolution systems, and were not in a position to recreate historical forms of justice. Swift replacement of the current systems by

* These remarks were delivered at the Indian Sovereignty Symposium IX in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 4, 1996. They are published

Law review article, Speech

Legal Education and Social Responsibility / The Moral Role of the Lawyer

Law review article, Speech / By

LEGAL EDUCATION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR*

I am very pleased to be present here today, October 24, 1984, for the dedication of Fordham Law School’s expanded facility. I think I should acknowledge and thank in part for my invitation Fordham’s Rec tor in 1918. That year the faculty faced the issue of women’s rights. The minutes of a May 1918 faculty meeting note that shortly before the close of the meeting, the Rector “asked for a discussion of the advisability of matriculating women in the Law School. After listening to the opinion of the various faculty members he announced that he would take the ‘matter under advisement’ and notify the faculty of his decision.”1 A postscript to the minutes adds: “In a letter from the Rev. Rector… under the date of July 6, 1918, he writes, ‘it has been decided that, owing to objections raised against it, women will not be admitted to classes of the Law School this Fall.’ ” 2 The minutes, however, contain a terse unexplained amendment: “In September, 1918 the Rev. Rector authorized the matriculation of women and ordered the insertion of this fact to be put in the newspapers.”3

I like to think that your former Rector not only helped advance the cause of women in the law, but that he would have been pleased that a woman was invited to give remarks today.

Your new law school building is most impressive and attractive. Before moving to its present site in 1961, the Law School had a rather nomadic existence in quarters that

Speech

Landon Lecture at Kansas State University

Speech / By

Sandra Day O’Connor Thank you. Thank you President Wefald and Chairman Slawson, students and friends of Kansas State University. john and i are absolutely delighted to be here and then happen with you at the university. And you’re showing some very beautiful weather to us which we like do much better than in Washington DC. And of course this is the home state of to distinguish senators and one of them senator Nancy cast bomb has encouraged me for several years now to try to accept the invitation to deliver the lecture name for her father. Now I confess that I have one keen disappointment and connection with this visit. I accepted your invitation too late to meet Mr. Landon who passed away last year. And I wish that I had had the foresight to have accepted a couple of years ago and have the chance to meet him. He, through the lectures has brought some wonderful people to the university. You don’t have to go to Washington to hear the nation’s leaders they come to you right here in Manhattan. It’s an interesting time around the nation, with the presidential primary elections taking place, and international treaties being debated in the Senate. It’s also a time when we have witnessed the nomination and confirmation process at work in selecting a new justice to fail our supreme court bench and when I returned to Washington, DC this week, on Thursday, I will participate in the ceremony, during which Justice Kennedy will be installed to round out our bench again at a full nine. All

Speech

Keynote address at “The Presidency and the Supreme Court” conference

Speech / By

Thank you. Thank you very much. That was a wonderful introduction. You even found things I didn’t know. What is this nixon tape business? I have to find out about that.

Sandra Day O’Connor yeah. I’m going to have to find out more about that. Now, I’m so glad to be at hyde park. It is my first visit to this place. And I know part of the wallace family, and I think david douglas is sitting right there. And they helped make this facility possible, chi think is marvelous. I’m so glad to see that. Tomorrow I look forward to seeing the other parts of hyde park in the daylight hours. And my parents were cattle ranchers, as you have heard. Many of the cattle ranchers, at least in the southwest did not approve of franklin roosevelt’s policies at all. Quite the contrary. They didn’t approve of eleanor roosevelt either. I’m not sure why, but they didn’t. And when I was a child, we didn’t have a a school near the ranch, and I was sent off to el paso texas where I lived with a grandmother to go to school. And went to this school for girls. The head mistress, dr. Lucinda temp lynn invited ell minor roosevelt to come to the school, and eleanor roosevelt accepted. And all of us were supposed to clean up and be out by the flag pole, waiting for eleanor roosevelt to arrive. Ki remember to this day all of us being out there waiting and here — I did not dare tell my parents. [laughter] and of course I realized I couldn’t possibly like her. And so we all stood out by the flag pole, and the black

Law review article

Juries: They May be Broken, But We Can Fix Them

Law review article / By

Great Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States continue to use juries to hear evidence and determine the facts in many criminal cases, although only the United States and New Zealand continue to require use of juries in most civil cases. Indeed, the jury system in this country is one of the most enduring aspects of our system. The only time most Americans, other than lawyers and litigants, see the inside of an actual courtroom is when they are called to serve as jurors. Juries have a proud history, both in this country and in England, where the jury as we know it developed. Juries usually do their job very well, and on occasion show extraordinary courage in the face of hostile or corrupt judges, delivering the verdict that justice demanded, even if it was not the verdict the judge wanted. As a trial judge, I presided over many jury trials in both civil and criminal trials. In all but two or three cases, I felt the jury reached an entirely appropriate verdict and the jurors were almost always conscientious and sincere in trying to do a proper job. But juries also have the ability to disappoint us, sometimes to the point of forcing us to question whether we should have jury trials at all. One of this country’s great observers of human nature, Mark Twain, once complained that juries had become “the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating justice that human wisdom could contrive.” 1

Our federal Constitution and all of it state counterparts guarantee

Panel discussion

“Judicial Independence”

Panel discussion / By

John Sexton, President of New York University My wife Lisa, our daughter Katie, and our son Jed were with me for that conference in Florence. Jed was the gofer. Lisa sprained her ankle and had to come home, so Katie, then seven, was a host. She, this little girl, stood next to me as the vans with the justices came up the long, tree-lined road that brought them to the main villa. I said, “Now, when the justices get out, you just curtsy and say ‘Buon giorno; welcome to La Pietra.’” Little Katie said and did just that as Justice O’Connor got out of the van. In her own magnificent way, Justice O’Connor embraced this little girl. Justices Ginsburg and Breyer were there too, and Justice Ginsburg spent a lot of time with Katie over the three days. But it seemed Justice O’Connor’s hand was always in Katie’s hand. When Katie came home, she brought with her Justice O’Connor’s cardboard name card from the conference. She put it on her desk, and when she got to the third or fourth grade and had to pick a person from all of history to be and to present a biography, she chose Justice O’Connor. A friend came over and saw this card on Katie’s desk and asked her about it. Katie, now about nine, said, “Oh, Justice O’Connor, she’s a friend of mine. She’s invited me to come down to Washington, and we spent a lot of time together. And there was this other Justice, Justice Ginsburg, and she was very nice, too.” Finally she said, “I didn’t spend a lot of time with Justice Breyer, so I can’t tell you

Interview

Interview with WIRED magazine

Interview / By

NEW YORK – Sandra Day O’Connor is going from Supreme Court justice to game maker.

Delivering the keynote address Wednesday at the annual Games For Change conference

at Parsons The New School For Design, O’Connor detailed a project she is spearheading called Our Courts, which she described as an “online, interactive civic education project for seventh- and eighth-graders” that familiarizes students with the legal system. O’Connor believes that America’s youth aren’t learning enough about civics, and thinks that the educational power of videogames is just the thing to change that.

“Only one-third of Americans can name the three branches of government,” O’Connor said, “but two-thirds can name a judge on American Idol.”

“If someone told me when I retired from court that I’d be talking at a conference about digital gaming, I’d think they’d had one drink too many,” O’Connor told the crowd of academics and gaming professionals.

Now in its fifth year, the Games For Change conference is hosted by Parsons The New School For Design and is dedicated to exploring the development of videogames that deal with social issues.

“Of the three branches of government, the one that’s least understood is the judiciary,” said former U.S. Senator and current New School President Bob Kerrey, introducing O’Connor.

O’Connor said that the No Child Left Behind act of 2001 has “effectively squeezed out civics education” from public schools. “We can’t forget that the primary purpose of public schools

Interview

Interview with Town of Paradise Valley Historical Committee

Interview / By

SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR Tuesday, February 4, 1997 Joan Horne, former Mayor of the Town of Paradise Valley, and myself, Ann Townsend, are most privileged to interview Justice of the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor. Justice O’Connor, thank you very much for your graciousness in granting this interview in your home in Paradise Valley. Interviewer: Do we have your permission in quoting you in part or all of this interview for our project on the history of Paradise Valley, Arizona? O’Connor: I think we will do the interview first and then decide that. Interviewer: All right. Are you a native of Arizona? O’Connor: Yes and no. I grew up on the family cattle ranch in the eastern part of Arizona and the western part of New Mexico. The ranch was in both states. To get to the ranch house, we had to drive through miles and miles of New Mexico, before we crossed back into Arizona. The house was in Arizona. My grandfather started that ranch in 1880. That was where my parents were living when I was their first child. My mother wanted to go to the hospital for the birth of her first child, understandably. Her mother and father were living in El Paso, Texas, where my mother had lived before she married my father. Shortly before my expected arrival, my mother went to El Paso. I was born in Hope Will Do Hospital in El Paso. I understand that structure is no longer there. As soon as she felt up to travelling, she arrived back to the ranch with a relative, we got in a car and drove back to the Lazy-B

Interview

Interview with the Wall Street Journal

Interview / By

I don’t know if I’m good at it or not. But I’m certainly willing to do it.’

Wall Street Journal Supreme Court correspondent Jess Bravin sat down with Justice O’Connor to talk about her work as a substitute judge on federal circuit courts. Read excerpts from the interview.

* * *

The Wall Street Journal: You were a state judge and a Supreme Court justice for more than three decades. You retired in 2006. Why are you still out there judging?

Sandra Day O’Connor: It’s required. Not only that, I believe the requirement includes that the chief justice certify that I’ve done an adequate amount. And he doesn’t know what’s adequate, nor do I. I’ve done a fair amount so I assume it’s adequate. It’s kept me busy.

WSJ: Isn’t this a self-enforcing burden? No one’s going to say, “You haven’t been judging enough!”

Justice O’Connor: Oh, I don’t know. The chief justice has to say it’s enough.

WSJ: Does he give you a performance review each year?

Justice O’Connor: He doesn’t say whether I’ve done a good job or not, but he has to say whether in his opinion I’ve done enough to meet the statutory requirement. I’m sure he doesn’t know what that is, because I don’t know what that is. I think I’ve done plenty, but that’s my opinion!

WSJ: Okay, you have to do it. But you’re obviously very good at it —

Justice O’Connor: Oh, I don’t know if I’m good at it or not. But I’m certainly willing to do it. It’s been an interesting opportunity for me to see the different circuits and it also makes it