Sandra Day O'Connor is a powerful and well-respected American jurist. She happens to be the first woman member of the Supreme Court of the United States and is well-known for being firm and just.She has developed a solid reputation as she has broken new ground for women in the legal field. Sandra Day considered each and every case very cautiously and leaned to vote in line with her politically conservative nature.
Sandra Day O'Connor's core legal philosophy still remains hard to define. She analyzes each case with individual treatment and seeks always to arrive at a rational decision. Her moderateness has helped her role as a centrist coalition-builder, which has accordingly elevated her power on the Court.
O' Connor was born on 26th March, 1930, in El Paso, Texas. Sandra had spent her early childhood on the Day family's 198,000 acre cattle farm. Later, she was sent back to El Paso to live with her grandparents. In 1950, she attended Stanford University, where she completed her B.A. in economics. At Stanford, she also completed her law degree. She met John Jay O'Connor III, during her work as editor on the Stanford Law Review. Soon she married him and they settled in Phoenix, Arizona. The people of Phoenix, Arizona were very proud of one of their own when Sandra was named to the United States Supreme Court.
From 1965 to 1969, Sandra served as an Arizona Assistant Attorney General. In 1970, Sandra Day had cast a preliminary vote in favor of a bill to cancel the Arizona's criminal-abortion act. In 1974, she successfully held the post of trial judge and had voted against a measure to forbid abortions in some hospitals of Arizona. In 1979, she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. After about18 months, she was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan. In September 1981, she became the Supreme Court’s 102nd justice and its first female member.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman jurist to the Supreme Court, and he did so out of a responsibility to keep a campaign promise. Sandra's appointment quickly drew criticism from both the political left and right. Conservatives claimed that she was lacking in constitutional knowledge and also lacked of federal judicial experience. They regarded her as a wasted nomination and suspected her position on abortion. On the other hand, Liberals, could not deny their happiness and satisfaction at seeing a woman on the Court. However, Sandra answered all these criticisms with her centrist-oriented ideology. Soon her efforts were appreciated, even by those liberals who called her a “traitor” in her early years for compromising on abortion rights.
For twenty-four years, Sandra Day O’Connor was a pioneering force on the Supreme Court and is indeed a role model who will be remembered for her sturdy guiding hand in the court’s decisions for years to come. Her achievements and popularity reached such a height that in 2009, she was acknowledged by President Obama and was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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