Talk:Sandra Day O'Connor

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[edit] Speaking Style

I was listening to some tapes of oral arguments and heard O'Connor speak with a kind of a lisp. does she have one? or is it just the recordin? Kiwidude 05:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

When I saw her speak in person, she did not appear to have any kind of lisp. This, of course, is my personal impression.

[edit] Photo

What a funny photo of O'Connor swearing in Gonzalez. Either Alberto Gonzalez is really short or O'Connor is really tall. And how about O'Connor's hand gesture??

  • it is a very funny and a great one. Kiwidude 05:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Class rank

It's stated that O'Connor graduated toward the top of a Stanford class in which William Rehnquist was valedictorian; however, the Rehnquist article currently tells us that Stanford didn't rank its law students in 1952, citing this article.

The article does say that O'Connor was one of ten students selected for the Order of the Coif. Presumably this indicates that, at least by the criteria used by the Order, O'Connor was in the top tenth of her class.
— DLJessup (talk) 00:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] O'Connor's retirement: when effective?

Regarding when O'Connor's retirementwas effective....

Ok, how about this one. As congress didn't pass a law increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices above 9, it would not have been legal for Alito to be sworn in and begin the work of the court without O'Connor's retirement. Gentgeen 09:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The press release does not say that O'Connor is no longer a Associate Justice. It may be a matter of mere hours until O'Connor issues a press release wishing Alito well and bidding farewell to the Court, but until she actually does so, Wikipedia's policy is to not contain unverifiable statements. JonathanFreed 09:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I applaud Wikipedians' efforts to keep Wikipedia up-to-date. However, O'Connor's actual retirement is not yet verifiable. We may only need to wait a few mere hours until O'Connor issues a press release wishing Alito well and bidding farewell to the Court, but until that or something similar confirms O'Connor's retirement, it is not verifiable. All we have now at this moment is a statement of intent, but that is not any more significant than was George H. W. Bush's pledge of No New Taxes. (Indeed, because Article III states that O'Connor holds office "during good Behavior", it is appropriate to say that she will be merely abstaining from votes, and that she could retake her seat at any time if she so desires. However, I sincerely doubt that she would instigate such a constitutional crisis!) JonathanFreed 10:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
You're wrong. According to her retirement letter of July 1, 2005, her retirement was effective upon the nomination and confirmation of her successor. That happened yesterday morning. At that time, she had not withdrawn her resignation, and it became effective. You're simply disrupting this article to prove a point. Gentgeen 10:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
We have both cited the same letter. It contains a statement of intent and therefore only verifies her intent and nothing more. It is an inference that she is currently retired and is a "former" member of the Court. Is it a valid inference? Almost definitely, but it is still an inference. An example of an explicit verification would be a post-Alito-confirmation statement by O'Connor that yes, she is retired and is a former member of the Court. Examples of implicit verification would be her consistent absence from Court proceedings or her lack of objection to being knowingly-characterized as a retired and/or former member of the Court. I have not seen anybody provide a corresponding citation. Because content "must be verifiable", I feel obligated to edit again, though I will certainly try for a NPOV statement that is acceptable for all. This is, I believe, in line with Wikipedia's guideline about being bold. JonathanFreed 12:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
You were, in fact, wrong. O'Connor announced to the CEO of her employer that she would retire upon the completion of certain conditions. Her resignation was accecpted by the CEO, at which point it became a legally binding agreement. She never renounced her retirement, and the CEO never terminated the retirement agreement. As soon as the conditions specified in her retirement letter were met, she was no longer a member of the Supreme Court. As evidence of this, her successor was sworn in as an Associate Justice. Under Title 28, Part 1, Chapter 1, Paragraph 1 of the United States Code, the number of Supreme Court Justices is fixed at 9, so if she was still an active justice, the act of swearing in Alito would have been illegal. Further action by O'Connor was not required. Further evidence can be found in the hundreds of news reports stating that O'Connor has retired. In fact, she's starting a new job tomorrow, something that would be frowned upon by a sitting justice. Gentgeen 19:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
FYI: Per policy, I am responding to to Gentgeen's tone on his talk page, not here. I will respond to his arguments here at a time of my choosing. Until then, interested parties may wish to read the related discussion in the archive. JonathanFreed 02:12, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
From the beginning, my primary concern has been about what constitutes verification and whether Wikipedia should have stated that O'Connor was retired before her retirement could be verified, and not whether O'Connor was-- for all practical purposes-- retired as of January 31, 2006. Significantly, Wikipedia's policy regarding verifiability has changed since my original edits; it now includes the statement that "the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth".
  • Regardless of the policy version and as I've stated before, O'Connor's letter of July 1, 2005 is merely a 'statement of intent' and therefore does not constitute verification that O'Connor was actually retired as of Alito's confirmation.
  • Likewise, O'Connor's committment to start a new teaching job at the University of Arizona in what was the future was not verification that O'Connor was retired as of Gentgeen's post (above).
  • Alito's swearing-in and 28 USC 1 is also not verification that O'Connor is retired because they do not prevent O'Connor from continuing S.C. work as long as no more than nine justices vote in any one case. Though that seems unlikely, it could happen in a case where a justice recuses him or herself. Interestingly, CNN has reported that O'Connor is "maintaining a small office in the [Supreme Court's] building ... and she will also have a law clerk at her disposal." Also, the Federal Judicial Center[1] says that she is in "senior status"[2], which presumably means she is still an Associate Justice, albeit a "senior" Associate Justice.
Gentgeen also cited "hundreds of news reports" in his 19:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC) post as verification that O'Connor has retired. Under the old verifiability policy, I did not consider those to be appropriate verification because those statements could not have been based on anything but inferences regarding O'Connor's retirement. Why not? One reason is that O'Connor "offered no farewell speech or public statement"[3], and we therefore had no way of verifying the truth of those news reports. For verification, we needed to wait for an explicit statement from O'Connor that yes, she was retired, or wait for implicit verification, for example, her consistent absence from Court proceedings or her lack of objection to being knowingly-characterized as a retired and/or former member of the Court.
Under the new verifiability policy, I agree that the "hundreds of news reports" that stated that O'Connor has retired are verification that O'Connor has indeed retired, as long as the news reports are from reliable sources. However, we should be mindful that even usually-reliable sources get stories wrong.
So, Gentgeen: what specifically in my previous edits did you disagree with? I assume, in good faith, that you did not mean to say that "I" (in general) was wrong, and instead you had something specific in mind. JonathanFreed | Talk | 07:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is It True?

Is it true that O'Connor told Ginsburg to "shut up and be quiet" when she spoke out of turn?

No. I've read substantially all the literature on relations between the Justices and all indications are that Justices O'Connor and Ginsburg always got along well. If anything like this had happened, it would be discussed somewhere. Did you have a specific source in mind? Newyorkbrad 04:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to the photo?

what happened to the photo that was at the beginning of this article? i know it was deleted but any reason why? i'm going to put it back until there's a definitive reason. Kiwidude 00:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "This is terrible"?

Did she really say "This is terrible" on election night 2000? [4] [5] Since she didnt resign for another 5-6 years it kind of cast some doubt on it, yes? Ewlyahoocom 21:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I don't know about that. In Edward Lazarus' book Closed Chambers it it said that Justice Kennedy was the Justice who most wanted to take jurisdiction over the case. In fact, Lazarus says that Kennedy is the author of the per curiam opinion of Bush v. Gore.<<Coburn_Pharr>> 12:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I remember reading this in a Newsweek article about her retirement. Can't cite, though. Rmj12345 07:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


I am doing a report on Mrs. Sandra Day O'Conner for my american history class..... Thank You....

[edit] Justice O'Connor and senior status

I realize that FJC says that O'Connor is on senior status, but I think that is unsupportable for reasons given here. Senior status and retirement are different; senior status is defined by statute, and includes certain duties and responsibilities that O'Connor does not (to my knowledge) undertake. Nor does her resignation letter give any reason to assume that she retired under the auspices of §371(b) rather than §371(a). Simon Dodd 15:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for referring us to the discussion at the Supreme Court article. Everybody, if you have anything to say about this subject, please comment there, so that all of the discussion will appear in one place. --JonathanFreed | Talk | 05:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Republican or Democrat?

I can't tell...what is she?

Republican. Newyorkbrad 04:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

-both

umm.........

She was nominated by Reagan, a Republican, but she's a moderate Republican. She has gone the other way in some cases. --Nishkid64 22:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

She was a Republican when she served in the Arizona State Legislature and has always been enrolled as a Republican. Her voting record as a Justice, whatever one might think of it, doesn't change that. Newyorkbrad 23:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Is her political party all that relevant? Aside from the typical rule that Justices typically seek to have their replacements chosen by presidents of the same political party that appointed them, we don't typically speak of Republican Justices or Democrat Justices. It's not as if we speak of a political party having control over the Court in the same way that we speak of a political party having control over Congress or the Presidency. ---Axios023 03:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When did she die?

when?!?!?!? please answer.

Uhh...she didn't die. Maybe you've mistaken her with William Rehnquist? --Nishkid64 22:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope -- not dead yet. "Senior status" is the technical legal term for when a federal judge retires. ---Axios023 03:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prosecutor, not District Attorney

Sandra Day O'Connor was never a District Attorney, so that category does not apply here. She was a prosecutor, however, so that category does apply. The two are not one and the same.

Um... "prosecutor" is a generic term for a lawyer that represents the government in criminal cases. "District attorney" is the term some jurisdictions (not Arizona) use for the office of prosecutor; frequently this person is elected. "District attorney" can also refer to anyone who works for the elected official.
In any event, shouldn't someone verify that she actually worked as a prosecutor before putting her in the wikicategory? As the story goes, the only job she could get as a graduate of Stanford Law School in the 1950s was as a secretary in the San Mateo County District Attorney's office. If this is the source of the wikicategorization, then she doesn't qualify as a prosecutor because she didn't work there as a lawyer. ---Axios023 05:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] honorary doctorates

In addition to the honorary degrees listed, she received an honorary doctor of laws from The George Washington University Law School during a graduation ceremony sometime in May 2003 (I was there). There may be others - somebody might want to do some research and comprehensively list them. -VJ 20:18, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of Ann Coulter's opinion of O'Connor

I removed a citation from FrontPage Magazine regarding Ann Coulter's opinion that appointing O'Connor was Ronald Reagan's biggest mistake. Her opinion about O'Connor is not relevant to this article. It has nothing to do with whether or not Coulter herself is notable; a person's notability does not extend to all statements they make on any subject. What is it that makes the fact that Coulter had something to say about Justice O'Connor notable? I'm removing the statement again, since it seems to conflict with the "Biased or malicious content" section of WP:BLP, particularly:

The views of critics should be represented if their views are relevant to the subject's notability and are based on reliable sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics' material. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. If the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority, it has no place in the article.

Coulter's opinion is her own; it does not represent a substantial criticism of O'Connor. Mike Dillon 00:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I brought this up at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard to get an opinion. Mike Dillon 01:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree - Coulter's views, in this case, do reflect the general conservative view of O'Connor, as the article itself notes. The phrasing is obviously Coulter's own, but the sentiment isn't. Korny O'Near 08:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
If you have a source indicating that this is the general conservative view, like a news article commenting on the fact that the view is more than a fringe attempt at political sniping, then so be it. However, the way this is presented doesn't make it look that way, especially considering Coulter's tendency to present exaggerated viewpoints to get a rise out of her audience and critics. Also, the placement in the jurisprudence section seems incomplete, since the way the citation is presented doesn't note that O'Connor's pragmatic jurisprudence is the reason Coulter considers O'Connor's appointment Reagan's biggest mistake. You'll notice I left Krauthammer's view in the same paragraph, since in that case the cited article actually does show its relevance to the section. Mike Dillon 14:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Coulter's opinion may not be Wiki-appropriate, but the failing of the O'Connor article is the absence of legitimate criticism of O'Connor's jurisprudence. The recent Greenberg bestseller, Supreme Conflict, doesn't paint O'Connor in a good light, and there's nothing in the article about it. There are numerous conservative critiques of the O'Connor era ([6], [7], [8], [9]). -- TedFrank 15:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't doubt that there is significant conservative criticism of O'Connor, but the opinion that this made her Reagan's biggest mistake seems to simply be Coulter's malicious opinion. Mike Dillon 03:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, you seem to have a standard for citing opinions that's far stricter than what I've seen anywhere else, but, since you feel so strongly about it, I won't fight this one anymore. As TedFrank pointed out, there's other opinion that can and probably should be included. Korny O'Near 00:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lady's Home Journal

It seems a little undignifed to quote it in the opening section. Does their opinion really matter anyway? Steve Dufour 13:36, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political Party

Usually it is not correct to put a person's political party if they are a justice simply based on the president who appointed them - but Justice O'Connor was a senator too, so she really is a (moderate) Republican. Shouldn't it be in the infobox?

[edit] Sorority Correction

I'm 99% sure Sandra Day O'Connor isn't a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. It isn't listed on their website under notable people, and I haven't seen it on any other O'Connor bio I've read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.167.251.226 (talk) 07:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Trivia Section discouraged?

I enjoyed reading the tidbits of facts about her life. Please, please do not remove or delete the items. She is an intriguing woman, and I feel that others can get a good understanding of her as a person by reading the info. 24.251.84.221 00:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discrepancy

In the Retirement and Service on the United States Courts of Appeals section, the article states that the law school of Arizona State University was renamed in December 2006, but in the trivia section it states that it was renamed on April 5, 2006. Neither the article on Arizona State University nor the article on the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law shed light on this. Whichever is correct should be placed in the Retirement section and the trivia point should be removed. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 17:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There's a link to the ASU page which says definitively that it was April 5, not December. I removed the item in the Trivia section. --rpogge Sept. 19, 2007

[edit] First Woman Majority Leader

It is often said that O'Connor was the first female to lead a state legislature, but she was not. Margaret Mahoney was the Democratic leader in the Ohio Senate in 1949 and 1950. See the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame page on her here.PedanticallySpeaking 20:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] John Jay O'Connor, III

So, their names are "John Jay" & "Sandra Day"? Hm.

Today, Sanjay Gupta has asserted that Away_from_Her is representative of their circumstance.

Thank You,

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 19:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-considering 1st paragraph edit?

I don't understand the reasons for Sjrplscjnky's recent edit of this article -- not that I'm sure that the data are necessarily "wrong." Rather, I'm persuaded that the strategy of introducing academic honors in the first paragraph is an unhelpful approach to this specific subject. I note that articles about other sitting Justices have been similarly "enhanced;" and I also believe those changes are no improvement.

In support of my view that this edit should be reverted, I would invite anyone to re-visit articles written about the following pairs of jurists.

The question becomes: Would the current version of the Wikipedia article about any one of them -- or either pair -- be improved by academic credentials in the introductory paragraph? I think not.

Perhaps it helps to repeat a wry argument Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford Law makes when she suggests that some on the Harvard Law faculty wonder how Antonin Scalia avoided learning what others have managed to grasp about the processes of judging? I would hope this anecdote gently illustrates the point.

Less humorous, but an even stronger argument is the one Clarence Thomas makes when he mentions wanting to return his law degree to Yale.

At a minimum, I'm questioning this edit? It deserves to be reconsidered. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 00:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)