SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR Biography - Crimes, Laws and people

 
 

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SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Name: Sandra Day O'Connor                                                       
Born: 26 March 1930 El Paso, Texas                                               
                                                                                 
Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American jurist who was the     
first woman to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. She served from 1981 to 2006. Although she was considered a strict       
constructionist, her case-by-case approach to jurisprudence and her relatively   
moderate political views made her the crucial swing vote of the Court for many   
of her final years on the bench. She still objected to that characterization     
because she felt it painted her as an unprincipled jurist. In 2001, Ladies' Home 
Journal ranked her as the second most powerful woman in America. In 2004 and     
2005 Forbes Magazine listed her as the sixth and thirty sixth most powerful     
woman in the world, respectively; the only American women preceding her on the   
list were Former National Security Advisor & U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza 
Rice, New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and First   
Lady Laura Welch Bush.                                                           
                                                                                 
Prior to joining the Supreme Court, she was a politician and jurist in Arizona. 
She was nominated to the Court by President Ronald Reagan and served for over   
twenty-four years. On July 1, 2005, she announced her intention to retire       
effective upon the confirmation of her successor. Justice Samuel Alito,         
nominated to take her seat in October 2005, received confirmation on January 31, 
2006. She is currently the Chancellor of the College of William and Mary, and   
also currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution     
Center in Philadelphia, a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution.