Sandra Day O’Connor was born in El Paso, Texas in 1930. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in economics, and she also received her LL.B. from the Stanford Law School. O'Connor served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965 to 1969, and was then appointed to fill a vacancy in the Arizona State Senate. She became the first woman to serve as its Majority Leader. In 1975 she was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court and in 1979 was elevated to the Arizona State Court of Appeals. On September 25, 1981 President Reagan nominated O’Connor as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, making her the first woman to ever hold this position. In 2004, O’Connor published her second book, The Majesty of
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Each chapter of the book follows similarly to an argumentative essay format: background/hook, thesis, claim, evidence, opposing view, refutation, and conclusion. An example of this format is in Chapter 12: The Rights of the Individual and the Legacy of Holmes. She provides a background of Holmes and states her thesis about him contributing to the understanding of the Bill of Rights and how he was the “most liberty alert Justices of all time”. She claims that his thoughts influenced the way we conceive the balance of individuals and state and government and citizens. She provides evidence by giving Holmes’ explanation of certain cases such as Lochner v. New York. O’Connor’s opposing view against Holmes was that he, “Did not always conceive of individual rights as absolutes, particularly when substantive due process was involved”. She refutes “But with the freedom of speech and the right to a fair criminal trial--I suspect that Holmes had a more personal conception of the good, one that did not depend on the views of the community…” She concludes that without Holmes’ broad view, the federal courts would have no thought to define the constitutional rights possessed by defendants in local …show more content…
O’Connor does a good job giving her insight on the law, her life as a Supreme Court Justice, and how the court has evolved and his continuing to grow. The order, in which she sections the book, starting with Life on the Court and ending with The Rule of Law in the Twenty-first Century, was very structured. The use of pictures throughout the book helps readers put faces on the names that are mentioned. While the book is very well written and structured, I wish O’Connor talked more about herself and her experiences as being the first female Justice. I also think that she would have expanded on the Women and the Law section instead of having seven chapters about the history of the Constitution. I would have liked to read more about her views on the progress women have made in society and the judicial
Each chapter of the book follows similarly to an argumentative essay format: background/hook, thesis, claim, evidence, opposing view, refutation, and conclusion. An example of this format is in Chapter 12: The Rights of the Individual and the Legacy of Holmes. She provides a background of Holmes and states her thesis about him contributing to the understanding of the Bill of Rights and how he was the “most liberty alert Justices of all time”. She claims that his thoughts influenced the way we conceive the balance of individuals and state and government and citizens. She provides evidence by giving Holmes’ explanation of certain cases such as Lochner v. New York. O’Connor’s opposing view against Holmes was that he, “Did not always conceive of individual rights as absolutes, particularly when substantive due process was involved”. She refutes “But with the freedom of speech and the right to a fair criminal trial--I suspect that Holmes had a more personal conception of the good, one that did not depend on the views of the community…” She concludes that without Holmes’ broad view, the federal courts would have no thought to define the constitutional rights possessed by defendants in local …show more content…
O’Connor does a good job giving her insight on the law, her life as a Supreme Court Justice, and how the court has evolved and his continuing to grow. The order, in which she sections the book, starting with Life on the Court and ending with The Rule of Law in the Twenty-first Century, was very structured. The use of pictures throughout the book helps readers put faces on the names that are mentioned. While the book is very well written and structured, I wish O’Connor talked more about herself and her experiences as being the first female Justice. I also think that she would have expanded on the Women and the Law section instead of having seven chapters about the history of the Constitution. I would have liked to read more about her views on the progress women have made in society and the judicial