correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Sandra Day O’Connor as the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the majority opinion in a 2000 decision involving the Violence Against Women Act. Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the opinion. O’Connor was among the justices who joined it. The article has been corrected.
Late one night in the spring of 1994, a 40-year-old federal judge was startled awake by loud pounding at the front door of his home in Vienna, Va.
The sound was so jarring, so insistent, so out of character for his quiet Washington suburb that it unnerved J. Michael Luttig, a product of Northeast Texas who had put down deep roots in Beltway power circles.
