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Sandra Day O'Connor

United States Supreme Court Justices

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Sandra Day O'Connor lived from 1930 to 2023 and was an American attorney, politician and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed unanimously by the Senate, she was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice; before joining the Court she was an Arizona state judge and earlier an elected legislator in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate. A moderate conservative regarded as a swing vote, O'Connor wrote the majority opinions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, was one of three co-authors of the lead opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey preserving legal access to abortion, and wrote part of the per curiam majority opinion in Bush v. Gore. She retired in 2005 and was succeeded by Samuel Alito in 2006.

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