Thomas also writes that retired Justice John Paul Stevens told him O’Connor regretted stepping down when she did, in January 2006, and Stevens added, “The Court has never been this far to the right.” It looked like a party-line vote, I know.’ Her craggy face softened and grew sad.” Gore, as she sat in a wheelchair at her assisted living facility,” Thomas recounts of a January 2017 exchange, “she answered, ‘I’m sure I did, but second thoughts don’t do you a lot of good. “Asked if she had any regrets about Bush v. Thomas writes that O’Connor took the lead to craft its legal grounds and inserted a key line in the unsigned opinion limiting it “to the present circumstances” or, as Thomas characterizes it, “a one-time ticket to get out of a jam.” The 5-to-4, conservative-versus-liberal decision, with O’Connor in the majority, ensured the end of recounts and secured Republican George W. Gore, the Florida election dispute that culminated the presidential election in 2000. But he adds details to familiar court dramas such as Bush v. He writes that O’Connor, who will be 89 on March 26 and has Alzheimer’s disease, generally declined to discuss cases and her approach to the law.

Veteran author Evan Thomas captures in “First,” released Tuesday, the woman who lived much of her life in the spotlight yet who, in the quiet of her home, struggled with common health difficulties and the vicissitudes of age. A new biography of the first woman on the Supreme Court details Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s agonizing struggle with her husband’s dementia in the years before she retired and her later angst as she watched the court lunge rightward and faced her own declining health.

When did sandra day o connor retire