Former US judge Sandra Day O'Connor dies

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An official photo of Sandra Day O'Connor from 2005.

Agence France-Presse

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Former American judge Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court and considered a voice of justice moderation within it, died Friday at the age of 93.

Chosen in 1981 by Republican President Ronald Reagan, whose first appointment – ​​for life – to the Supreme Court, she retired in 2006, notably to be able to help her husband John O'Connor, who suffered from of Alzheimer's disease and died in 2009.

After her, five other female judges were appointed to the Supreme Court, including four currently in office, the record for this institution.

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Sandra Day O'Connor is sworn in to the United States Supreme Court by Justice Warren Burger in 1981 .

Sandra Day O'Connor herself announced in 2018 that she was leaving public life to fight dementia, probably Alzheimer's disease.

She died Friday morning in Phoenix, capital of Arizona, the Court said in a press release, specifying that she died of complications linked to advanced dementia, probably [type] Alzheimer's, and respiratory disease.

A daughter of the American Southwest, Sandra Day O'Connor blazed a historic trail as the first female justice of our country's Supreme Court, writes Chief Justice John Roberts, praising her unwavering determination and competence. indisputable and its disarming frankness.

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At Court supreme, we mourn a beloved colleague, a fiercely independent advocate for the rule of law, and an eloquent civil rights activist.

A quote from Chief Justice John Roberts

Throughout her quarter of a century at the Supreme Court, through her centrist and pragmatic position, she often swung the majority of the nine judges to landmark rulings.

It is currently undoubtedly the Court of Sandra Day O'Connor, said law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, currently dean of the Berkeley Law School, in California, in 2001.

< p class="StyledBodyHtmlParagraph-sc-48221190-4 hnvfyV">In virtually every area of ​​constitutional law, its fifth deciding vote determines what the majority and minority position will be. Lawyers who plead before the Court and submit their written arguments know that in practice they are often addressing an audience of only one person, he said.

In 1989 and 1992, Sandra Day O'Connor thus preserved the Roe v. Wade of 1973, finally overturned by the current Court in June 2022, recognizing a federal right to abortion by refusing to add its voice to those of the most conservative judges.

On the other hand, she rallied with the conservative majority of the Court to block in 2000 the recount of the votes in Florida in the presidential election, allowing the Republican candidate George W. Bush to win over his Democratic opponent Al Gore.

This graduate of the prestigious Stanford Law School, in California, was also known for her attachment to the rights of the federated states in the face of federal power.

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President Barack Obama presented Sandra Day O'Connor with the Medal of Freedom in 2009.

It was a Democratic president, Barack Obama, who awarded him the highest American civilian distinction, the Medal of Freedom, in 2009.

Sandra Day O'Connor was like the pilgrim in the poem she sometimes quoted – blazing a new path and building a bridge behind her for all young women to follow.

A quote from Barack Obama, former president of the United States, in a press release

She always tried to find a consensus, underlined Republican Chuck Grassley, dean of the Senate.

He was the first judge I had the honor of voting for as a senator, a -he clarified. The Senate ratified his nomination by a vote of 99 to 0.

As a cowgirl from the Arizona desert, I would never have imagined one day becoming the first female justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, wrote in 2018 the woman who grew up on a huge and isolated ranch, saying she was deeply grateful for her journey, despite the first attacks of the disease.