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Another factor seemed significant: one member of the Supreme Court quietly passed word to the Justice Department that some of his aging colleagues were watching the selection carefully. If it was a reasonable choice, someone they could respect, they might decide there was little to fear from Reagan's attitude toward the court and follow Stewart into retirement. Otherwise they might hang on as long as they were physically able. Two of the Justices, William Brennan, 75, and Thurgood Marshall, 73, are liberals Reagan might like to replace.
Regardless of the motives, Reagan's men moved expeditiously to seek out a woman who met the President's main criteria. She had to be both a political conservative, meaning that she had a record of support for the kinds of issues Reagan favors, and a judicial conservative, meaning that she had a strong sense of the court's institutional limitations and would not read her own views into the law. The President even cautioned his search team that he did not want any single-issue litmus test, such as a prospect's views on abortion or ERA, to exclude her automatically from further consideration. That, of course, is precisely what critics of the O'Connor nomination wished the President had done.
By late June the list of women candidates had dwindled to four: O'Connor; Michigan's Cornelia Kennedy, 57, a Carter-appointed judge on the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Mary Coleman, 66, chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court; and Amalya L. Kearse. 44, a black who sits on New York's Second Circuit Court of Appeals. At this point none of the men was still in serious contention.
Smith sent his chief counselor. Kenneth Starr, and Jonathan Rose, an Assistant Attorney General, to Phoenix on June 27 to interview O'Connor and Arizonans who knew her well. Reporting back, Starr and Rose cited her experience as a legislator, a state government lawyer, and a trial and appellate judge, which made her aware of the practicalities of each branch of government. Smith liked her judicial inclination to defer to the legislative and executive branches. She was also seen as tough on law-and-order and reluctant to rule against police on technicalities. "She really made it easy," recalled one participant in the search. "She was the right age, had the right philosophy, the right combination of experience, the right political affiliation, the right backing. She just stood out among the women."