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It was better for me when I was joined at the court by a second woman. When I was there alone, there was too much media focus on the one woman, and the minute we got another woman, that changed.

Sandra Day O'Connor

My sense is that jurists from other nations around the world understand that our court occupies a very special place in the American system, and that the court is rather well regarded in comparison, perhaps, to their own.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Country House Special System World
If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Death May Penalty Statistics
And I went off to Stanford, I was pretty young and pretty naive. And I had a professor I really loved, who was himself a lawyer.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Lawyers Professors Young
I think it’s inevitable that some of the court’s decisions will be found by a segment of the public to be not the right decision or subject to criticism.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Criticism Decision Thinking
In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Eye Leadership Race
If I stumbled badly in doing the job, I think it would have made life more difficult for women, and that was a great concern of mine and still is.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Great Day Jobs Thinking
Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Equality Opportunity Responsibility
I’m a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it’s terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don’t like.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Decision Judging People
Each justice hires their own clerks, and applications are made individually to the justices. It isn’t a group decision.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Clerks Decision Justice
The fact is that knowledge about the Constitution and the Court is not something that is handed down through the gene pool; every generation has to learn it. And I’m not sure the recent generations have done that good a job of learning about it.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Constitution Done Pool
[Court] is an institution that depends on making tough decisions in close cases for reasons that it explains well and that, in the past at least, have proven satisfactory to the public.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Decision Past Tough
Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Learning Tasks Time
I don’t think it’s the court’s perceived role to do some explaining of a political nature.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Nature Political Roles Thinking
I tried to decide each case based on the law and the Constitution.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Cases Constitution Law
It is true that as you have children, there are a good many months when you don’t want to be working full-time. I agree that that’s an issue.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Children Issues Want
Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Borders Country Looks

It was better for me when I was joined at the court by a second woman. When I was there alone, there was too much media focus on the one woman, and the minute we got another woman, that changed.

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It was better for me when I was joined at the court by a second woman. When I was there alone, there was too much media focus on the one woman, and the minute we got another woman, that changed.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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