Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.
Occasionally we have to interpret an international treaty - one, perhaps, affecting airlines and liability for injury to passengers or damage to goods. Then, of course, we have to look to the precedents of other member nations in resolving issues.
There was no hostility at the court when I arrived.
The members of the court were just delighted to have a ninth member - male or female. They were all kind and welcoming.
What was a problem was the excessive amount of media attention to the appointment of the first woman and everything she did. Everywhere that Sandra went, the press was sure to go. And that got tiresome; it was stressful.
If I stumbled badly in doing the job, I think it would have made life more difficult for women, and that was a great concern of mine and still is.
The abortion cases produced an enormous amount of mail to my chambers, vastly more than to the other chambers, I am sure. I sometimes thought there wasn't a woman in the United States who didn't write me a letter on one side or the other of that issue.
My sense is that jurists from other nations around the world understand that our court occupies a very special place in the American system, and that the court is rather well regarded in comparison, perhaps, to their own.
Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.
I need to retire from retirement.
I'm a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it's terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don't like.
I think the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases.
The more education a woman has, the wider the gap between men's and women's earnings for the same work.
It is true that as you have children, there are a good many months when you don't want to be working full-time. I agree that that's an issue.
I don't know how a judge can concentrate on being fair and impartial when he or she is faced with possible jail time for making a decision that others deem incorrect.
Parents should continue to become more involved with their communities, and more involved in their children's education.
Half the states have stopped making civics and government a requirement for high school. Half.
The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.
And I went off to Stanford, I was pretty young and pretty naive. And I had a professor I really loved, who was himself a lawyer.
I sort of thought the framers of the Constitution were talking about the rights of individuals, not corporate entities.
