Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, has died at 93 WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism and the first woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, died Friday. She was 93. O’Connor died in Phoenix, of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness, the Supreme Court said in a news release. Chief Justice John Roberts mourned her death. “A daughter of the American Southwest, Sandra Day O’Connor blazed an historic trail as our Nation’s first female Justice,” Roberts said in statement issued by the court. “She met that challenge with undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor.” In 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with “the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.” Her husband, John O’Connor, died of complications of Alzheimer’s in 2009. Here’s what to know: The first woman to serve on the high court, O’Connor was known as an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism. Read excerpts from some of her opinions. She died of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness on Friday. In 2018, O’Connor announced in a frank and personal letter that she had the beginning stages of dementia, and likely Alzheimer’s. The Senate made her the first female justice on the Supreme Court by a 99-0 tally in 1981. What little opposition she did face was over her record on abortion when she had earlier served in the Arizona Senate. O’Connor’s nomination in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and subsequent confirmation by the Senate ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court. A native of Arizona who grew up on her family’s sprawling ranch, O’Connor wasted little time building a reputation as a hard worker who wielded considerable political clout on the nine-member court. https://apnews.com/article/supreme-...n=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
