First woman US Supreme Court Justice retires

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court and a key swing vote on issues such as abortion and the death penalty, said today she is retiring.

The retirement allows President George Bush to make his first nomination to the Supreme Court. That offers him an opportunity to expand his conservative agenda in the third branch of the US government.

A bruising Senate confirmation struggle looms. Bush’s choice would have to be confirmed by the Senate, where minority Democrats there have blocked several of his judicial nominees.

O’Connor, 75, said she expects to leave before the start of the court’s next term in October, or whenever the Senate confirms her successor. There was no immediate word from the White House on who might be nominated to replace O’Connor.

It’s been 11 years since the last opening on the court, one of the longest uninterrupted stretches in history.

“This is to inform you of my decision to retire from my position as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the US, effective upon the nomination and confirmation of my successor,” she said in a one-paragraph letter to Bush. “It has been a great privilege indeed to have served as a member of the court for 24 terms. I will leave it with enormous respect for the integrity of the court and its role under our constitutional structure.”

O’Connor, in a separate one-sentence statement, cited her age and said she “needs to spend time” with family. She and her husband, John, a former classmate at Stanford, have three sons.

O’Connor’s retirement came amid speculation that the ageing court would soon have a vacancy. But speculation has most recently focused on Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, who is suffering from thyroid cancer. Rehnquist has offered no public clue as to his plans.

The White House has refused to comment on any possible nominees, or whether Bush would name a woman to succeed O’Connor. Her departure leaves Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the only other woman among the current justices.

Possible replacements include Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and federal courts of appeals judges Michael Luttig, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Michael McConnell, Emilio Garza and James Harvie Wilkinson III. Others mentioned are former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, lawyer Miguel Estrada and former deputy attorney general Larry Thompson, but Bush’s pick could be a surprise choice not well known in legal circles.

O’Connor’s appointment in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, quickly confirmed by the Senate, ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court.

She wasted little time building a reputation as a hard-working moderate conservative who emerged as a crucial power broker on the nine-member court.

O’Connor often lines up with the court’s conservative bloc, as she did in 2000 when the court voted to stop Florida presidential ballot recounts sought by Al Gore, and effectively called the election for Bush.

As a “swing voter,” however, O’Connor sometimes votes with more liberal colleagues.

Perhaps the best example of her influence is the court’s evolving stance on abortion. She distanced herself both from her three most conservative colleagues, who say there is no constitutional underpinning for a right to abortion, and from more liberal justices for whom the right is a given.

O’Connor in late 1988 was diagnosed as having breast cancer, and she underwent a mastectomy. She missed just two weeks of work. That same year, she had her appendix removed.

For years, O’Connor had an involuntary nodding of her head, but said she never had it diagnosed. The movement, while not constant, was an up-and-down motion similar to that made by someone nodding in the affirmative.

O’Connor remained the court’s only woman until 1993 when, much to O’Connor’s delight and relief, President Bill Clinton appointed Ginsburg.

The enormity of the reaction to O’Connor’s appointment had surprised her. She received more than 60,000 letters in her first year, more than any one member in the court’s history.

At times, the constant publicity was almost unbearable. “I had never expected or aspired to be a Supreme Court justice. My first year on the court made me long at times for obscurity,” she once said.

O’Connor was 51 when she joined the court to replace the retired Potter Stewart. A virtual unknown on the national scene until her appointment, she had served as an Arizona state judge, and before that as a member of her state’s Legislature.

A fourth-generation Arizonan, she had grown up on a sprawling family ranch.

The woman who climbed higher in the legal profession than had any other member of her sex did not begin her career auspiciously. As a top-ranked graduate of Stanford’s prestigious law school, class of 1952, O’Connor discovered that most large law firms did not hire women.

One offered her a job as a secretary. Perhaps it was that early experience that shaped O’Connor’s professional tenacity.