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[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

The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Democracy Healthy Judging
Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Borders Country Looks
I finally gave up my little law practice and stayed home for about three years. You have to do what you can to keep the family going. But I wanted to get back to work. So I got another babysitter and went to work as an Assistant Attorney General.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Home Keep Law Wanted Years
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
Despite the encouraging and wonderful gains and the changes for women which have occurred in my lifetime, there is still room to advance and to promote correction of the remaining deficiencies and imbalances.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Gains Imbalance Rooms
The unhappy persistence of both the practice and the lingering effects of racial discrimination …is an unfortunate reality…and the government is not disqualified from acting in response to it.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Government Persistence Reality
I sort of thought the framers of the Constitution were talking about the rights of individuals, not corporate entities.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Constitution Rights Talking
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
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
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
Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Family Nature Women
I loved my husband very much, and it was heartbreaking to have him develop Alzheimer’s disease, and to stand by and watch him decline in his ability to take care of himself.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Ability Alzheimer Heartbreaking Husband
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

Focus Media Too Much
Slaying the dragon of delay is no sport for the short-winded.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Leadership Procrastination Sports
It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. Thats set out in the Constitution.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Government Successful Two
It is a measure of the framers’ fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Majority might Politics Value

[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.

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[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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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