Appointed by Reagan in 1981
First Supreme Court Justice O’Connor is dead
December 1, 2023, 6:05 p.m
Sandra Day O’Connor is the first woman ever to be appointed to the US Supreme Court; the Republican positions herself between conservative and liberal colleagues. She is part of a conservative majority in one of the court’s biggest decisions.
Former US Constitutional Judge Sandra Day O’Connor – the first woman to serve on the country’s Supreme Court in history – is dead. The lawyer died at the age of 93 in Phoenix, Arizona, from complications of dementia and a respiratory disease Supreme Court in Washington announced. Until 2006, O’Connor had served on the powerful court for a quarter of a century.
The graduate of California’s elite Stanford University was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1981 by then President Ronald Reagan. As a moderate Republican, the native Texan took a middle position between the conservative and left-liberal judges on the court.
She repeatedly joined the liberal camp in judgments, for example on questions about the separation of state and religion. But she was also part of the conservative judicial majority that banned a recount of votes in the state of Florida in the election crime between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore after the 2000 presidential election, which ultimately secured Bush’s overall victory. O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court in 2006.
O’Connor made history as the first female Supreme Court justice. In 2009, then US President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the US. After O’Connor, five other women have become Supreme Court justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.