Sarah DeCapua - Sandra Day OConnor

To Dr. Craig Wilkinsonand the life-affirming staff of Atlanta Oncology Associates

Published in 2014 by Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

303 Park Avenue South, Suite 1247, New York, NY 10010

Copyright 2014 by Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

First Edition

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

De Capua, Sarah.

Sandra Day OConnor / Sarah De Capua.

p. cm. (Leading women) Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: Presents the biography of Sandra Day OConnor against the backdrop of her political, historical, and cultural environmentProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-7614-4961-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-62712-117-0 (paperback)

978-1-60870-716-4 (ebook)

1. OConnor, Sandra Day, 1930Juvenile literature. 2. United States. Supreme CourtBiography Juvenile literature. 3. JudgesUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. 4. Women judgesUnited

StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series.

KF8745.O25D4 2011

347.732634dc22

[B]

2011009225

Editor: Deborah Grahame-Smith Art Director: Anahid Hamparian Series Designer: Nancy Sabato Photo research by Connie Gardner

Cover photo by Katie Travelstead

The photographs in this book are used by permission and through the courtesy of: Getty Images: 1, 43, Hulton Archive, 12, 16, David Hume Kennerly, 37, 48, Alfred Eisenstaedt, 38; Time and Life Images, 65, 67; AP Images: 4, 34, 56, 60, 62, 73, 76; Corbis: Susan Ragan, 8; Bettmann, 14, 27; Alamy: This Life Pictures, 30.

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

Justice OConnor, Welcome.

CHAPTER 2

Growing Up in the West

CHAPTER 3

Making a Name for Herself

CHAPTER 4

Reagans Choice

CHAPTER 5

Supreme Swing Vote

CHAPTER 6

Raising the Bar

TIMELINE

SOURCE NOTES

FURTHER INFORMATION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

CHAPTER ONE

Justice OConnor, Welcome.

Sandra Day OConnor takes the oath of office as the first woman justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, on September 25, 1981. Chief Justice Warren Burger (left) administers the oath, while OConnors husband, John, holds the familys Bibles.

O N FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1981, AT JUST after 2:00 P.M., fifty-one-year-old Sandra Day OConnor stood before Chief Justice Warren Burger in the U.S. Supreme Court building. Her husband, John, stood beside her, smiling and holding two Bibles, one stacked on top of the other. OConnor placed her left hand on the Bibles and raised her right hand. Following the lead of Chief Justice Burger, OConnor recited the oath of office:

I, Sandra Day OConnor, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

The chief justice shook OConnors hand and said, Justice OConnor, welcome.

The black-robed OConnor then took her seat at the end of the left side of the bench, farthest away from the chief justices seat. The seat on the left end is normally reserved for the newest member of the Supreme Court. In her book, Sandra Day OConnor: Justice in the Balance, Ann Carey McFeatters wrote, As OConnor looked down from the bench at her husband and three grown sons, her mother and father, sister and brother... her eyes welled up.

It was a moment suspended in time.

[OConnor] wrote later. The entire ceremony took only about fifteen minutes. But the brief ceremony held more than the usual importance of swearing in a new Supreme Court justice. By reciting the oath of office, Sandra Day OConnor became the first woman justice on the Court.

OConnors swearing in was not just an important event in the history of the United States. It was a personal triumph for her. Nearly thirty years before, as a new graduate of Stanford University Law School in California, she was turned down for a job at every law firm to which she applied. Despite graduating among those at the top of her class of 102, the only job she was offered was as a legal secretary in a Los Angeles law firm. At the time William French Smith, one of the partners at the firm, told her she could work as a secretary, but not as a lawyer. Ironically it was Smith, the U.S. attorney general from 1981 to 1985, who would be most helpful to OConnor when she was nominated for the Supreme Court.

Sandra Day OConnor was born on March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas. She grew up on a 160,000-acre (64,750-hectare) cattle ranch that was located on the border between Texas and New Mexico. Until she was eight years old, she was the only child of Harry and Ada Mae Day. Her most frequent companions were her parents and the cowboys who worked on the ranch, which was called the Lazy B Ranch. The Lazy B had no electricity or running water until Sandra was seven. Water had to be hauled in buckets carried from an outdoor pump. In a 2000 interview, OConnor said,

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the judicial branch of the U.S. government. (The three branches of government are the executive, legislative, and judicial. The president is the head of the executive branch. The two-house Congress is the head of the legislative branch, and the Supreme Court heads the judicial branch.) The Supreme Court was created in 1789 by Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which states that the judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court. The Supreme Court consists of the chief justice and several associate justices. Traditionally there have been eight associate justices, but the number has fluctuated between five and ten. The president nominates justices and the Senate votes on whether to confirm the nominees. Once sworn in, justices can keep their jobs for life, or until they resign or retire. Since 1790, when the Supreme Court was first convened, until early 2013, there have been a total of 112 justices. OConnor was the 102nd justice on the Court.

The Supreme Court building, nicknamed The Marble Palace, is located in Washington, D.C. The Courts session begins each year on the first Monday in October. The justices hear cases from October through the end of April. They announce decisions during May and June. The Court takes a break at the end of June or in early July, after it has addressed all the cases on its docket. While the justices are out of session, they may accept invitations from certain organizations or institutions to make speeches. Even while the Court is out of session, the justices work continues; they do research and writing in preparation for the next term, which begins again on the first Monday in October.