Sandra Day O'Connor was back at the U.S. Supreme Court on March 27, the day after her 76th birthday, but as a spectator.

Seated uncustomarily in the front of the audience, she was present to be accounted for in tributes from justices she had served with during her 24 years on the court.

Justice John Paul Stevens of Chicago read a letter that had been written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist two months before he died on Sept. 3. It called her retirement “a sense of loss to each of us.”

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. thanked O'Connor for “invaluable guidance and support” in the interim between his Sept. 29 confirmation and her leaving the bench when Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was installed on Jan. 31.

The accolades echoed praise that had accrued to O'Connor in U.S. House Resolution 357, which was adopted March 1, and at a dinner on Feb. 17 in the Union League Club of Chicago.

The retiring justice had been invited by the Union League to accept only the 54th honorary membership in its 126-year history, an achievement she shares with John Paul Stevens and four other Supreme Court justices from years past.

“Throughout her career, Justice O'Connor has been a voice of reason, independence and decency,” ULCC President Richard Moore said in his introduction.

“Despite occasionally displeasing those on the extremes of the ideological spectrum, her opinions have been models of restraint and devotion to the law,” he added, noting her pursuit of “consensus that serves the common good and enhances fairness and equality.”

While the justice accepted her honorary membership regalia graciously, she was evidently most thrilled to receive an inscribed 5-weight, 8.5-foot fly-casting rod, and mentioned that in her note of appreciation.

The fly rod was presented by Chicago attorney William S. Wigoda, who was aware that O'Connor enjoys stalking trout in northern Arizona's Marble Canyon.

O'Connor delivered an acceptance speech that traced the symbolic growth of the court since its humble beginning in 1790, when it had no home, no funding, no cases and sometimes no quorum.

“We have the duty to make Congress and the president really, really angry,” she said. “Our only weapon is our moral authority.” The court looks at legal issues “through the spectacles of common law.”

O'Connor agreed to take questions, but she was taken aback by a request to identify the brightest person she had met on the Supreme Court. “I didn't agree to answer all the questions,” she retorted.

In response to a question about changes that might occur with two new justice, she observed that “you get a new court, not just a new justice. We'll all be watching.”