Sandra O'Connor Retires - AP Blows The Story

This is from Opinion Journal about AP coverage of Sandra O'Connor's retirement. Someone from AP needs to learn a little about our courts!

Associated Press, we noted yesterday, flatly stated O'Connor would retire:

Sandra O'Connor, Baltimore County's state's attorney for more than three decades, has said she will retire, her office said Wednesday.

A Republican, O'Connor said she would retire in December 2006 when her eighth term ends, according to a release from Baltimore County State's Attorney's office.

O'Connor grew up in Catonsville and obtained her law degree at Indiana University School of Law, according to a biography on the office Web site.

Actually, O'Connor is a U.S. Supreme Court justice, not the Baltimore County state attorney; she has served for just under 24 years, not more than three decades; she is retiring as soon as her successor is confirmed, not in December 2006; Supreme Court justices serve for life and thus cannot have an "eighth term"; and O'Connor grew up outside Duncan, Ariz., not in Catonsville, and went to law school at Stanford, not Indiana University.

Other than that, the story was accurate.