Justice Randy J. Holland Memorial

CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR (RET.)
Supreme Court of the United States
Washington, D. C. 20543

March 4, 2010

The Honorable Randy J. Holland
Supreme Court of Delaware P.O. Box 369
Georgetown, DE 19947

Dear Randy,

Thank you for your letter of February 23, 2010. I will tentatively place Thursday, April 1, 2011 on my calendar for the national symposium sponsored by the American Inns of Court. I hope nothing interferes but, at this time, nothing is set in concrete.

Sincerely,
Sandra

Sandra Day O’Connor

CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR (RET.)
Supreme Court of the United States
Washington, D. C. 20543

February 3, 2010

The Honorable Randy J. Holland
Supreme Court of Delaware
P.O. Box 369 Georgetown, DE 19947

Dear Randy,

I am so pleased that you have agreed to be Delaware’s advisor for the Our Courts web site. It is very teacher friendly and the tests show the students learn a great deal from the games. The problem is that the teachers and schools do not know about it. We must lead them to it.

Thank you for helping.

Sincerely,
Sandra

Dear Justice Holland, (replace with Randy)

I am delighted that you have volunteered to chair Our Courts efforts in Delaware, and that you are committed to making it a model state for Our Courts adoption. Thank you for generously dedicating some of your limited time to this cause. I know we share a deep commitment to civic education, and I truly believe that Our Courts can help reinvigorate civics in Delaware and across the country. I was also very pleased to meet with the publishers from Thomson Reuters. I hope we can find a way to work with them as we move this project forward.

As always, I appreciate your wisdom and commitment, and look forward to continuing our work together.

Sincerely,
Sandra

Sandra Day O’Connor
Associate Justice, Retired United States Supreme Court

/CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR (RET.)
Supreme Court of the United States
Washington, D. C. 20543

January 15, 2010

The Honorable Randy J. Holland
Supreme Court of Delaware
P.O. Box 369
Georgetown, DE 19947

Dear Randy,
Glad to receive the good news in your letter of January 12, 2010. You will be an excellent spokesperson and advisor for the Our Courts civics education project in Delaware.

I, too, look forward to seeing you on February 2, and learning how Our Courts and my judiciary initiative can benefit from West Publishing.

Until then,
Sandra

CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR (RET.)
Supreme Court of the United States
Washington, D. C. 20543

September 22, 2009

The Honorable Randy J. Holland Supreme Court of Delaware P.O. Box 369
Georgetown, Delaware 19947

Dear Randy,
Thank you for your letter in support of Jason K. Kwartner for a position as a law clerk. He sounds wonderful and, given your high regard for him, I will be happy to consider his application with special attention when I begin my selection process for the 2010 Term.

Sincerely,
Sandra

Sandra Day O’Connor

CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR (RET.)
Supreme Court of the United States Washington, D. C. 20543

June 25, 2009

Honorable Randy J. Holland Supreme Court of Delaware 34 The Circle Georgetown, DE 19947

Dear Randy:

I wanted to write to you and extend my personal thanks for leading the task force convened after last fall’s conference on courts and corporate citizenship. I believe that bringing thought leaders together can prompt real change and that having a group such as the task force to distill lessons from our conferences is imperative to achieving that goal. The recommendations that followed our first conference gave rise to the civic-education initiative that has consumed much of my time and energy these past three years, and I have no doubt that this latest batch of recommendations will yield something equally fruitful.

I was very happy with the recommendations. The clarity and cohesion in the recommendations is a credit to your leadership. The recommendations addressed many of the concerns that I have felt over the past few years in addressing judicial independence. They also captured some great, real-world solutions that can be easily implemented in jurisdictions across our nation. When you presented the recommendations after lunch, I (along with many other people) perked up and paid close attention. I am extremely appreciative for all the time and assistance you have given to this endeavor. You really made an important contribution and, as always, I am indebted to you for all the hard work you have put into making our Project a success.

Sincerely,
Sandra

Sandra Day O’Connor

February 6, 2009
Honorable Randy J. Holland
Justice Supreme Court of Delaware

Dear Justice Holland:

Since my retirement from the United States Supreme Court, I have traveled the nation and the world speaking about issues that are of concern to me. International dispute resolution, the rule of law, and improved civics education for our young people are all topics that I am now able to speak about freely. Yet one matter consistently on my mind, and key to my mission, is the need to confront challenges to judicial independence at the state and federal level.

In 2006, Justice Breyer and I asked Georgetown University Law Center to host a conference, co-sponsored by the American Law Institute, called “Fair and Independent Courts: A Conference on the State of the Judiciary”. Shortly thereafter, Georgetown Law agreed to serve as the home for the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary, which over its three-year life has held additional conferences, published articles and op-eds, and assisted me in my efforts to increase public awareness on this topic. Recently, the Project, together with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences published a special volume of Daedalus on this important subject.

The Project is completing its work in 2009, and to mark this, we will be holding a major event. I invite you to hold May 20, 2009 for this important Conference, co-sponsored by Georgetown Law and The Aspen Institute. The Conference will take place at Georgetown Law’s Capitol Hill campus in Washington DC. It is an invitation-only event, for thought leaders like yourself- people from the business, non-profit, education and media communities, as well as leading attorneys and judges. There is no charge to attend-we ask only that you listen to and engage with the panelists, actively participate in the plenary session, and return to your jobs and communities energized. We hope you will come away from this Conference actively committed to keeping our courts fair and impartial, maintaining the quality of the bench, and educating your colleagues and fellow citizens to the essential fact that judges are bound by their oath to decide cases based on the law and facts, and that this is the essence of the legitimacy of the courts in a democracy like ours.

To give you a sense of some of the subjects we will be considering, I have included with this letter two things: a DVD of the 2006 Conference Proceedings, and a copy of the November 2008 special issue of Daedalus. I hope you will enjoy these.
Justice Breyer and I, and a number of other special guest speakers and panelists have already marked our calendars to attend this important Conference. We hope that you will also hold the date. I look forward to greeting you in May.

Sincerely yours,
Sandra Day O’Connor

Sandra Day O’Connor Associate Justice, Retired
United States Supreme Court
cc.: Walter Isaacson, President, The Aspen Institute

Fun letter from Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to Justice Randy J. Holland re Georgetown Law

January 5, 2009
Honorable Randy Holland Supreme Court of Delaware

Dear Justice Holland Randy
In October, you were a featured panelist at the 2008 Sandra Day O’Connor Project conference on Our Courts and Corporate Citizenship. The day was devoted to a discussion of the relationship between judicial independence and the vitality of corporations and our economy.

We discussed the important role of independent courts in ensuring the rule of law that gives confidence to markets, and we discussed some of the reasons that corporations have increasingly turned from the use of courts to resolve their disputes to the less public, less regulated fora of alternative dispute resolution. Finally, we discussed the role of campaign contributions in state court judicial races, and why it is essential that the public have confidence in the impartiality of our judges.
The events of the last few weeks have reconfirmed the worth of these themes. As we have seen, decision-making that was done out of the public view, without regulation and without impartial referees, has done devastating damage to the confidence of markets. While the resolution of the current crisis in the financial realm will require the creation of new mechanisms and solutions, in the realm of public dispute resolution, the courts have always stood ready, if they remain independent, to serve as a neutral arbiter, whose sole mandates are to administer justice and uphold the rule of law.

We know that you understand how important the courts are to our democracy, and so we invite you to serve as a member of the Task Force on Courts and Corporations. This group of distinguished individuals from the corporate and legal community will review the conference proceedings, deliberate, and issue a report on the ways that the corporate community can uphold the independence of the courts. Your professional stature and acumen, and that of the other proposed members of the Task Force will assure that the report will receive media coverage and public attention.

The Task Force will receive staff support from the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary. Members will confer by conference call on three occasions, in January, February and March, and by May 1, 2009 will issue a 5-6 page white paper making a series of recommendations with proposed action steps.

To get you started, we attach a summary prepared by staff which represents “raw” findings that emerged from the Conference.
We hope that you will agree to participate in this important project. To indicate your agreement to do so, please contact ————, the Project Director of the Sandra Day O’Connor Project.

Very truly yours,
Sandra

Sandra Day O’Connor Associate Justice, Retired
United States Supreme Court

You know this already

/CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR (RET.)
Supreme Court of the United States
Washington, D. C. 20543

December 22, 2008

The Honorable Randy J. Holland
Supreme Court of Delaware P.O. Box 369
Georgetown, DE 19947

Dear Randy,

Thank you for your letter of December 10, 2008, inviting me to come to Delaware to speak about judicial independence. I would like very much to accommodate your request, but I am afraid that all my available time next Spring has been exhausted. I am sorry, and I wish it were otherwise.

Best wishes to you and Ilona for the holidays and into the New Year.

Sincerely,
Sandra

Sandra Day O’Connor

Supreme Court of the United States
Washington, D. C. 20543
CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR (RET.)

November 26, 2008

The Honorable Randy J. Holland
Supreme Court of Delaware
P.O. Box 369
Georgetown, DE 19947

Dear Randy,

Thank you for your kind note. It was a fun evening and I enjoyed being with you and Ilona at the Appellate Judges’ 2008 Education Summit.

Sincerely,
Sandra

Sandra Day O’Connor