Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Justice who was the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, announced in a letter Tuesday that she has the “beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s.” The Associated Press reports that O’Connor, now 88, said the diagnosis was made “some time ago,” and that the condition has now become so serious that she is “no longer able to participate in public life.” O’Connor was first nominated to the Court by President Reagan in 1988, where she served until 2005.
