O’Connor, 93, died on December 1. Her death was due to “complications related to advanced dementia,” the court said.
Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court Justice and served until 2006.
O’Connor inspired generations of female lawyers – including the five women who served after her nomination on the high court. Over time, she became known as a moderate conservative and often the swing vote on hot-button social issues.
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Biden and Roberts will give eulogies for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor today
From CNN's Joan Biskupic
In this September 1981 photo, Sandra Day O'Connor laughs as she stands alongside Sen. Joe Biden just following her confirmation on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will be eulogized Tuesday under the vaulted ceiling and vast stained-glass windows of the Washington National Cathedral by Chief Justice John Roberts and President Joe Biden – two men who first met O’Connor in 1981 when she was nominated to the Supreme Court.
Roberts, then 26, had just joined the Ronald Reagan administration when he was enlisted to help O’Connor prepare for her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Biden, then 38, was the committee’s top Democrat.
O’Connor, the child of a pioneering ranch family and a former Arizona state senator and judge, aced that hearing and became the first woman on America’s highest court. She also became, by the end of her quarter-century tenure, the most influential sitting justice on social policy issues, such as abortion rights, and the division of power between the states and Washington.
When O’Connor announced her retirement in July 2005, Roberts, then a federal appellate judge, was initially selected to fill her seat as an associate justice. But before his Senate hearing could be held, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist died and President George W. Bush switched Roberts to that vacancy.
As two national leaders address the congregation and a televised audience at Tuesday’s memorial, they will manifest their personal experiences with the woman who made history.
In 1981, Biden voiced some wariness regarding the Reagan nominee but was quickly won over.
“Don’t wall yourself off,” Biden said during a Judiciary Committee hearing, knowing she was all but confirmed. “Your male brethren have not done it. Don’t you do it. You are a singular asset, and you are looked at by many of us not merely because you are a bright, competent lawyer but also because you are a woman. That is something that should be advertised by you. You have an obligation, it seems to me, to women in this country to speak out on those issues that you are allowed to under the canons of ethics. Don’t let us intimidate you into not doing it.”
Spectators spontaneously applauded, prompting the committee chairman to admonish there was no clapping allowed.
Sandra Day O'Connor remembered at ceremony for opening doors for women in law, current justice says
From CNN's Devan Cole
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks during a private service for retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Monday.
Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AP
The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was honored Monday morning at the Supreme Court during a ceremony in which she was lauded for her collegiality on the bench, role as a moderate jurist and status as the first woman to serve on the court.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor drew on past statements by various justices who often spoke glowingly about O’Connor.
“My friend Clarence once described Sandra as the ‘glue of this court.’ I agree. She brought us all together,” Sotomayor said, referring to Justice Clarence Thomas.
Sotomayor, who at one point described O’Connor as her “life role model,” spoke about the “gravity” she felt when O’Connor was nominated by President Ronald Reagan for a seat on the court during a time that women were severely underrepresented in state courts and the legal industry at-large.
“For the four of us and for so many others of every background and aspiration, Sandra was a living example that women could take on any challenge, could more than hold their own in spaces dominated by men and could do so with grace,” Sotomayor said.
The ceremony, held at the court Monday morning, was attended by all nine current justices, as well as retired Justice Anthony Kennedy and members of O’Connor’s family.
The late justice laid in repose at the Supreme Court Monday and members of the public were invited to pay their respects to her there. An private, invitation-only funeral service will take place for O’Connor Tuesday at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
Rev. Jane Fahey, a former O’Connor clerk, also paid tribute to her former boss’ “lessons in meaningful work, loving relationship and zest for life.”
“Hers was a lifetime appointment, but ours was the gift of her lifelong investment in us, not just as lawyers, but as full human beings,” she said.
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Sandra Day O'Connor's funeral will be held today in Washington
From CNN's Devan Cole
A private, invitation-only funeral service for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will take place today at 11 a.m. ET, at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
The funeral comes a day after members of the public had an opportunity to pay their respects in front of the Supreme Court — where O’Connor laid in repose.
It’s traditional for late justices to lie in repose at the Supreme Court.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — the second woman to join the high court — became the first woman to do so following her death in September 2020. The late Justice John Paul Stevens also laid in repose following his death in July 2019.
President Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks at the memorial service, the White House said.
CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg contributed reporting to this post.
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The Supreme Court was known as "O'Connor Court" because she was often the deciding vote
From CNN's Ariane de Vogue
Sandra Day O'Connor pledges allegiance to the flag during a hearing in Gilbert, Arizona, on September 17, 2005.
Matt York/AP/File
During her tenure, the court for a time was known informally as the “O’Connor Court” because she served as the deciding vote in so many controversial cases.
She was perhaps best noted for her vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 opinion that reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Under the new ruling a state could not impose an “undue burden” on a woman seeking an abortion.
The opinion would be overturned in 2022 by a conservative court bolstered by three of President Donald Trump’s nominees.
O’Connor also wrote a 5-4 opinion upholding the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action program in 2003.
Nearly two decades later, the Supreme Court announced that it would take a fresh look at affirmative action during the 2022 term.
She also penned the judgment of the court in 2004 ruling against the George W. Bush administration’s post-9/11 detainee policy, writing, “a state of war is not a blank check.”
She sided with the conservative side of the bench, however, in favor of Bush during the 2000 Bush v. Gore case that ensured the presidency for the Republican candidate and remained steadfast in supporting states’ rights.
While criticized at times for lacking a dedication to a hard and fast jurisprudential doctrine, she was known as a swing vote and a pragmatist who dealt with issues on a case-by case basis.
Sandra Day O'Connor is shown before administering the oath of office to members of the Texas Supreme Court in Austin, Texas, on January 6, 2003.
Harry Cabluck/AP/File
Growing up on the Lazy B Ranch in Arizona, Sandra Day O’Connor was known for her self-reliance and independence, traits she acquired as a young woman branding cattle, driving tractors and firing rifles.
O’Connor stepped down from the court in 2006 to care for her husband who was ailing from Alzheimer’s disease. President George W. Bush would go on to nominate Justice Samuel Alito to take her seat.
A graduate of Stanford University, she went on to study at Stanford Law School where she met and dated — for a time — her classmate the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
She would go on to marry another classmate, John O’Connor.
Upon graduating, she was turned down by law firms because of her sex. Eventually, she started her own firm with her husband. Later, she served as an Arizona state senator as the first female majority leader.
She was a judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court and, in 1979, the Arizona Court of Appeals.
“We all bring with us to the court or to any task we undertake our own lifetime of experiences and background,” O’Connor said in a 2003 CNN interview. “My perceptions might be different than some of my colleagues’ but at the end of the day we all ought to be able to agree on some sensible solution to the problem,” she said.
Former O’Connor clerk James Forman argued that her gender was not a factor in her jurisprudence.
“I don’t think there’s any decision you can say, ‘she reached this result because she’s a woman,’” Forman said.
Sandra Day O'Connor died at 93 due to complications with "advanced dementia," SCOTUS said
From CNN's Ariane de Vogue
Sandra Day O'Connor testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, on July 25, 2012.
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images/File
Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who blazed trails as the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, has died, the court announced December 1.
O’Connor, 93, died due to “complications related to advanced dementia,” the court said.
O’Connor inspired generations of female lawyers — including the five women who served after her nomination on the high court. They admired her path marking success in a field that had been dominated by men. Over time, she became known as a moderate conservative and often the swing vote on hot-button social issues.
She died after living to see a new conservative-leaning court overturn an abortion decision she helped pen in 1992, lower the bar between church and state and set its sights on another area of interest to her: affirmative action.
Chief Justice John Roberts described O’Connor as a “patriot” and a “fiercely independent defender of the rule of law, and an eloquent advocate for civics education.”
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, hailed her as “an American icon.”
“I did not agree with all of her opinions, but I admired her decency and unwavering devotion to the facts, to our country, to active citizenship and the common good,” Biden said in a statement earlier this month.
In 2018, O’Connor revealed in a letter that she had been diagnosed with the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.
“While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings of my life,” she wrote.
In nominating O’Connor for the bench in 1981, President Ronald Reagan called her “truly a person for all seasons, possessing those unique qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity, and devotion to the public good which have characterized the 101 brethren who have preceded her.”
In this September 1981 photo, Sandra Day O'Connor laughs as she stands alongside Sen. Joe Biden just following her confirmation on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will be eulogized Tuesday under the vaulted ceiling and vast stained-glass windows of the Washington National Cathedral by Chief Justice John Roberts and President Joe Biden – two men who first met O’Connor in 1981 when she was nominated to the Supreme Court.
Roberts, then 26, had just joined the Ronald Reagan administration when he was enlisted to help O’Connor prepare for her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Biden, then 38, was the committee’s top Democrat.
O’Connor, the child of a pioneering ranch family and a former Arizona state senator and judge, aced that hearing and became the first woman on America’s highest court. She also became, by the end of her quarter-century tenure, the most influential sitting justice on social policy issues, such as abortion rights, and the division of power between the states and Washington.
When O’Connor announced her retirement in July 2005, Roberts, then a federal appellate judge, was initially selected to fill her seat as an associate justice. But before his Senate hearing could be held, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist died and President George W. Bush switched Roberts to that vacancy.
As two national leaders address the congregation and a televised audience at Tuesday’s memorial, they will manifest their personal experiences with the woman who made history.
In 1981, Biden voiced some wariness regarding the Reagan nominee but was quickly won over.
“Don’t wall yourself off,” Biden said during a Judiciary Committee hearing, knowing she was all but confirmed. “Your male brethren have not done it. Don’t you do it. You are a singular asset, and you are looked at by many of us not merely because you are a bright, competent lawyer but also because you are a woman. That is something that should be advertised by you. You have an obligation, it seems to me, to women in this country to speak out on those issues that you are allowed to under the canons of ethics. Don’t let us intimidate you into not doing it.”
Spectators spontaneously applauded, prompting the committee chairman to admonish there was no clapping allowed.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks during a private service for retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Monday.
Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AP
The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was honored Monday morning at the Supreme Court during a ceremony in which she was lauded for her collegiality on the bench, role as a moderate jurist and status as the first woman to serve on the court.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor drew on past statements by various justices who often spoke glowingly about O’Connor.
“My friend Clarence once described Sandra as the ‘glue of this court.’ I agree. She brought us all together,” Sotomayor said, referring to Justice Clarence Thomas.
Sotomayor, who at one point described O’Connor as her “life role model,” spoke about the “gravity” she felt when O’Connor was nominated by President Ronald Reagan for a seat on the court during a time that women were severely underrepresented in state courts and the legal industry at-large.
“For the four of us and for so many others of every background and aspiration, Sandra was a living example that women could take on any challenge, could more than hold their own in spaces dominated by men and could do so with grace,” Sotomayor said.
The ceremony, held at the court Monday morning, was attended by all nine current justices, as well as retired Justice Anthony Kennedy and members of O’Connor’s family.
The late justice laid in repose at the Supreme Court Monday and members of the public were invited to pay their respects to her there. An private, invitation-only funeral service will take place for O’Connor Tuesday at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
Rev. Jane Fahey, a former O’Connor clerk, also paid tribute to her former boss’ “lessons in meaningful work, loving relationship and zest for life.”
“Hers was a lifetime appointment, but ours was the gift of her lifelong investment in us, not just as lawyers, but as full human beings,” she said.
Link Copied!
A private, invitation-only funeral service for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will take place today at 11 a.m. ET, at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
The funeral comes a day after members of the public had an opportunity to pay their respects in front of the Supreme Court — where O’Connor laid in repose.
It’s traditional for late justices to lie in repose at the Supreme Court.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — the second woman to join the high court — became the first woman to do so following her death in September 2020. The late Justice John Paul Stevens also laid in repose following his death in July 2019.
President Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks at the memorial service, the White House said.
CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg contributed reporting to this post.
Link Copied!
Sandra Day O'Connor pledges allegiance to the flag during a hearing in Gilbert, Arizona, on September 17, 2005.
Matt York/AP/File
During her tenure, the court for a time was known informally as the “O’Connor Court” because she served as the deciding vote in so many controversial cases.
She was perhaps best noted for her vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 opinion that reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Under the new ruling a state could not impose an “undue burden” on a woman seeking an abortion.
The opinion would be overturned in 2022 by a conservative court bolstered by three of President Donald Trump’s nominees.
O’Connor also wrote a 5-4 opinion upholding the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action program in 2003.
Nearly two decades later, the Supreme Court announced that it would take a fresh look at affirmative action during the 2022 term.
She also penned the judgment of the court in 2004 ruling against the George W. Bush administration’s post-9/11 detainee policy, writing, “a state of war is not a blank check.”
She sided with the conservative side of the bench, however, in favor of Bush during the 2000 Bush v. Gore case that ensured the presidency for the Republican candidate and remained steadfast in supporting states’ rights.
While criticized at times for lacking a dedication to a hard and fast jurisprudential doctrine, she was known as a swing vote and a pragmatist who dealt with issues on a case-by case basis.
Sandra Day O'Connor is shown before administering the oath of office to members of the Texas Supreme Court in Austin, Texas, on January 6, 2003.
Harry Cabluck/AP/File
Growing up on the Lazy B Ranch in Arizona, Sandra Day O’Connor was known for her self-reliance and independence, traits she acquired as a young woman branding cattle, driving tractors and firing rifles.
O’Connor stepped down from the court in 2006 to care for her husband who was ailing from Alzheimer’s disease. President George W. Bush would go on to nominate Justice Samuel Alito to take her seat.
A graduate of Stanford University, she went on to study at Stanford Law School where she met and dated — for a time — her classmate the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
She would go on to marry another classmate, John O’Connor.
Upon graduating, she was turned down by law firms because of her sex. Eventually, she started her own firm with her husband. Later, she served as an Arizona state senator as the first female majority leader.
She was a judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court and, in 1979, the Arizona Court of Appeals.
“We all bring with us to the court or to any task we undertake our own lifetime of experiences and background,” O’Connor said in a 2003 CNN interview. “My perceptions might be different than some of my colleagues’ but at the end of the day we all ought to be able to agree on some sensible solution to the problem,” she said.
Former O’Connor clerk James Forman argued that her gender was not a factor in her jurisprudence.
“I don’t think there’s any decision you can say, ‘she reached this result because she’s a woman,’” Forman said.
Sandra Day O'Connor testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, on July 25, 2012.
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images/File
Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who blazed trails as the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, has died, the court announced December 1.
O’Connor, 93, died due to “complications related to advanced dementia,” the court said.
O’Connor inspired generations of female lawyers — including the five women who served after her nomination on the high court. They admired her path marking success in a field that had been dominated by men. Over time, she became known as a moderate conservative and often the swing vote on hot-button social issues.
She died after living to see a new conservative-leaning court overturn an abortion decision she helped pen in 1992, lower the bar between church and state and set its sights on another area of interest to her: affirmative action.
Chief Justice John Roberts described O’Connor as a “patriot” and a “fiercely independent defender of the rule of law, and an eloquent advocate for civics education.”
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, hailed her as “an American icon.”
“I did not agree with all of her opinions, but I admired her decency and unwavering devotion to the facts, to our country, to active citizenship and the common good,” Biden said in a statement earlier this month.
In 2018, O’Connor revealed in a letter that she had been diagnosed with the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.
“While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings of my life,” she wrote.
In nominating O’Connor for the bench in 1981, President Ronald Reagan called her “truly a person for all seasons, possessing those unique qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity, and devotion to the public good which have characterized the 101 brethren who have preceded her.”
