
The month before Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement in 2005, she dissented from Supreme Court decisions in two cases that illustrated the twin perils of local tyranny and federal overreach.
O’Connor, who was appointed to the court by Ronald Reagan in 1981 and died Dec. 1 at 93, eloquently explained why property rights are especially important for people with little political influence and how state autonomy allows policy experiments that promote progressive as well as conservative goals.