Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes

We do not sit like a kadi under a tree dispensing justice according to considerations of individual expediency

Lady Justice doesn't have empathy for anyone. She rules strictly based upon the law, and that's really the only way that our system can function properly under the Constitution.

The law itself is on trial in every case as well as the cause before it.

Let's create a legal system that can work.

History or custom or social utility or some compelling sense of justice or sometimes perhaps a semi-intuitive apprehension of the pervading spirit of our law must come to the rescue of the anxious judge and tell him where to go.

The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.

Judges shall judge justly, according to the written law and not according to their own judgment.

In the criminal justice community, as a judge, being tough is not enough. You have to be fair.

Enforcing the law is not an injustice.

Conservatives like to insist that their judges are strict constructionists, giving the Constitution and statutes their precise meaning and no more, while judges like Ms. Sotomayor are activists. But there is no magic right way to interpret terms like 'free speech' or 'due process' - or potato chip.

Were I confirmed as a judge, I would decide cases according to the rule of law beginning to end.

I simply apply the law fairly and equally to all our citizens.

If justice is supposed to be fair, than any justice system you would hope is based on fairness.

Swift justice demands more than just swiftness.

This is the time that I really miss being in my courtroom because I believe that that's the last place in this country where there's supposed to be fairness.

I believe I am strengthening the Constitution with my case.

If the law doesn't apply equally to everybody, then you don't really have a system of law.

Common sense often makes good law.

Justice is the object of government, and those who support the government, must be agreed as to the justice to be executed by it, or they cannot rightfully unite in maintaining the government itself.

Let's not interfere with justice... Let's let justice speak.

But, I know enough people in that court, through the years, to know one thing: There's always somebody who surprises you, who rises above what they thought they appointed him for, and stays with the separation of powers, and with the right of the law to decide.

What I perceive, is above all justice, where everyone has the same law.

It is impossible to tell where the law stops and justice begins.

That's the whole point of... of prosecutorial discretion in the judicial system. It's finding a just outcome in an individual case.