Statement on the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Shirley S. Abrahamson, Chief Justice, Wisconsin Supreme Court
Chair, National Conference of Chief Justices

Madison, Wisconsin - July 1, 2005

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced today that she would retire from the U.S. Supreme Court effective before the commencement of the Supreme Court’s fall term. Justice O’Connor has served on the nation’s high court for 24 years. Following is the statement of Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson, Wisconsin Supreme Court, who is serving as Chair of the Conference of Chief Justices:

September 25, 1981, the date on which Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, lives in my memory every bit as brilliantly as my own investiture, in 1976, as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Along with much of the rest of the nation, I watched history being made as the first woman ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court took the oath of office.

My interest in Justice O’Connor’s career was both professional and personal. We graduated from law school just a few years apart and were both academically successful students who were initially unable to find jobs because of our gender. Justice O’Connor eventually found a county attorney’s office in San Mateo, California that was willing to hire a woman; I found a law firm in Madison, Wisconsin that was willing to take a chance on me. We took different professional paths – Justice O’Connor had a remarkable career as a state senator and then a trial and appeals court judge before her appointment as justice; I worked in private practice and as a professor at the UW Law School before my appointment.

Justice O’Connor was and is an independent – as judges must be – who has allowed only her reading of the facts and the law to guide her in the thousands of decisions in which she has participated during her 24 years on the Supreme Court. In addition to issuing articulate, well-reasoned opinions, Justice O’Connor has earned a reputation as an inspired public speaker and an assiduous worker who has managed to publish works and to participate in countless educational and outreach programs during her tenure on the court.

I have been privileged over the years to join Justice O’Connor at a number of professional and social events and, several years ago, she and I traveled to Israel together as part of a program sponsored by the New York University School of Law. I count Justice O’Connor among my friends and among the people whom I admire. I am sorry to see her leave the court, but I wish her and her wonderful husband John a happy and healthy retirement in their beautiful home state of Arizona.

For more information contact:
Amanda Todd
Court Information Officer
(608) 264-6256

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