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Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
National
Jacob Sullum

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s legacy includes two impactful dissents in 2005

President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Sandra Day O’Connor in 2009. O’Connor joined the Supreme Court in 1981 as the nation’s first female justice. She died Dec. 1. (AP file)

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.

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