Judge O’Connor is remembered in the National Cathedral Service
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the decisive voice on some of the most pressing issues facing the country, is expected to be honored Tuesday at the Washington National Cathedral.
President Biden and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. are among those who will give praise during the funeral service to the judge, who as the ideological center of the court wielded considerable power during her term.
Judge O’Connor, who died this month at age 93 from complications of dementia, was baptized into the Episcopal Church, regularly worshipped at the National Cathedral and had served on its board of directors.
The service begins at 11 a.m. Eastern Time, the second day of the ceremony in Washington, where the judge served for 24 years before retiring in 2006.
On Monday, she lay in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court as her former law clerks took turns watching over her casket.
The current justices, along with retired Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, attended a private service at the court along with the judge’s family and law clerks.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the third female judge, spoke of Judge O’Connor’s commitment to creating an atmosphere of collegiality at the court, adding that she believed Judge O’Connor “would be smiling knowing that four sisters serve” on the nine-member court. court.
The Rev. Jane E. Fahey, one of Judge O’Connor’s first law clerks in the 1980s, remembered her for “her cowgirl grit, energy and no-nonsense sense of duty.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, arrived later to pay their respects.
The daughter of an Arizona rancher, Judge O’Connor spent a colorful childhood on the Lazy B, where her family raised cattle in the high desert along the Arizona-New Mexico border.
She joined the Supreme Court in 1981. Fulfilling a campaign promise to appoint the first woman to the court, President Ronald Reagan nominated Judge O’Connor, who at the time was an Arizona appeals court judge.
She announced her retirement because her husband, whom she met while they were both students at Stanford Law School, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease years earlier.
During her retirement, the justice focused on two issues: judicial independence and citizenship education. She also traveled with her grandchildren and wrote two children’s books that grew out of her childhood on a ranch.
In October 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with the early stages of dementia and would retire from public life.