Recently Sandra Day O’Connor stated that she would have stayed
longer on the Supreme Court if her husband were still in good
health. John O’Connor is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and his
wife felt the time had come to devote her energies full time to his
care. Good Western woman that she is, she has her priorities in
order even if it means sacrificing the highest position within the
profession that has constituted her life’s work.
Justice O’Connor suggested that not only would she have kept
going, she would have persisted until she was pretty close to dead.
Referring to her predecessors, she said, “Most of them get ill and
are really in bad shape, which I would’ve done at the end of the
day myself, I suppose, except my husband was ill and I needed to
take action there.”
O’Connor was guided somewhat by the example of William
Rehnquist, who died of thyroid cancer while still Chief Justice, in
September 2005. Anyone who saw photos of him prior to his death
would acknowledge that he looked to be “in pretty bad shape,” and
that his continuing in the position was problematic at best. Since
he remained steadfast in his determination not to step down, she
decided to quit herself, she says, fearing that two vacancies at
once might be problematic. Of course that is what happened
anyway.
Not that hanging on is anything new at the Supreme Court, part
of the challenge posed by life appointments (which should perhaps
be known as death appointments) to what has been called the
imperial judiciary.
The politicians in Washington, whatever their other faults, must
submit themselves for election every two, four or six years. This
arrangement still allows for less than optimal results. Strom
Thurmond served in the Senate until age 100, and for years before
that there were questions about his mental state and physical
vigor. But at least the voters of Thurmond’s state always had a say
about it — throughout his 80s and 90s, he went before them to ask
for another term, and they granted it to him. That’s all you can
ask.
O’Connor’s predicament is one that more Americans are likely to
face as life expectancy increases and with it, the questions about
when and how to step away from the field of one’s labors. Not only
do longer lives require more money, but longer, healthier lives —
unlike her husband, O’Connor is in good health — mean that one’s
productive years can be stretched out much longer than previous
generations once expected.
At the same time, the Baby Boomers’ dread of aging (even their
retirement commercials retain some hint of triumphing over time)
has pervaded a culture that once prized the good sense of knowing
when to leave your neighbor’s cocktail party, and doing so quietly.
The Boomers introduced the notion of the high-spirited party animal
that has to be dragged away. Little value is placed anymore on
deferral. You stay around as long as you can, dignity be damned.
The worst fate is to be “on the sidelines.” It’s likely that this
thinking has had an effect even on those, like O’Connor, who are
members of an earlier generation.
With all of these forces coalescing — to say nothing about the
political dynamite that now greets each vacancy and makes it heavy
with implication — it’s no wonder that the Supreme Court justices
don’t want to quit.
Most of us know people who, while their health is failing, are
still at the very top of their game mentally; and others who are
reasonably young and certainly not terminal, but for whatever
reason just don’t have it anymore. A much smaller group have both
relative youth and their faculties intact, but choose to walk away
early, guided by a reluctance to practice their profession in a
slow decline. It has been suggested that Supreme Court Justice
Potter Stewart was one of this small camp, but it’s not likely
he’ll have many heirs.
Making exits was once a great art, partly because the exit was
so clearly volitional and involved a conscious choice by the
individual to walk away. The person’s life was going to continue,
but no one knew in what fashion, which introduced elements of
sacrifice and mystery to the decision. If we’re all just going to
serve now until we drop, that certainly simplifies things — and
cheapens them a little, too.
But hanging on is what we know how to do, and can do, and seems
like the most fundamental common sense when we are hanging on to
something or someone we love. Letting go sounds good, but what of
it? Once you let go, you’re gone.
Or so we have increasingly come to believe. The only way to know
for sure, of course, is to let go.
