The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice.

• Author: Rogers, C.D.
• Position: Book Review

by Sandra Day O'Connor

Since 1981, when Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, she has attracted interest. In the preface to The Majesty of the Law, she recalls: She and her husband John "went to a restaurant for dinner with one of my law clerks. On our way out, John heard someone say about me, 'It doesn't look like her, but it's her.' Others have asked me if I knew how much I looked like Sandra O'Connor.... And a few people, when they hear that Justice O'Connor is present, walk over to shake John's hand and tell him how proud they are to meet a Justice."

The interest of her book (copyright 2003) resides in insights of this individual justice and facts from our legal world.

Justice O'Connor reveals a reverence for the law. In the courtroom, she is seated beneath a marble panel of an allegorical figure of the Majesty of the Law. "The panel itself suggests why we revere" this majesty: it safeguards the "liberties and rights of the people," defends "human rights and the protection of the innocence," and "embodies the hope that impartial judges will impart wisdom and fairness when they decide the cases that come before them." She notes historical legal milestones from the influence of the Magna Carta and the rule of law, the effect of compositional changes of the Supreme Court, the contribution of states in the legal process (praise for Florida for enforcing Gideon and recognition of Tennessee in its swing vote for Amend. XIX), to the continual commitment "to basic concepts of democracy" that depends on custom, tradition, and the efforts of millions of ordinary citizens." She also challenges continual search for legal reasoning, including both common-law courts and other foreign legal systems to "enable us to remain progressive, with systems that can cope with a rapidly shrinking world."

She faces two issues of particular--and related-interest: "whether it makes a difference that we have women judges, and whether the justice dispensed by women judges is somehow different from the justice we would expect from men." The...