The president's pick of John G. Roberts, a white male, quashed debate about whether O'Connor's successor should be a woman.

While Utah's 3rd District Court Judge Denise Lindberg would have preferred that a woman replace O'Connor, she is pleased with Bush's selection.

Roberts, with whom she worked side by side for four years in Washington, will make an "excellent justice," she said.

"John is wonderful," Lindberg said. “He's unquestionably conservative, but extremely bright. He knows the Supreme Court about well as any attorney who is not actually at the Supreme Court.

“He approaches legal questions very fairly. I just think that he will continue that,” she said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and now it's second-ranking GOP member, said Roberts is an “outstanding pick.”

“He is a brilliant constitutional lawyer with unquestioned integrity,” Hatch said. “He's the kind of judge that all of us want:

someone committed to applying the law impartially rather than legislating from the bench.”

Lindberg believes a diverse group on the bench is an asset to the high court.

"While it [the Supreme Court] was never meant to be a representative body, it certainly enriches the experiences you bring to the court when you have people with varied and rich life experience helping make the most profound decisions about what the law is and means," Lindberg said.

Utah Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Greenwood said she thought the gender of O'Connor's replacement was secondary to other issues.

"I'm more interested in their judicial philosophy," she said. "But it would be nice to have two females on the Supreme Court."

Carrie Towner, a second-year University of Utah law school student who is president of the Women's Law Caucus, is among those who believe having another woman on the court is important.

"I would love to see another woman on the Supreme Court," she said before the president's announcement.

"It doesn't have to be this time, it could be next time, too, but I definitely think women need to be included in that exclusive group. I do feel women have different views in the world, and I think a balance on the court would be nice."

Erik Luna, a professor at the U.'s law school, said some polls showed a majority of Americans wanted to see O'Connor's position filled by another woman - an opinion first lady Laura Bush had said she shared.

"My opinion is it should be the best [candidate], regardless of gender or race," he said just before the president's announcement.

Luna's opinion is matched by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who said he was impressed that the president didn't feel compelled to fill any quota by picking a nominee by a certain gender or ethnic background.

“What I did suggest [in a conversation with Bush] is that I hope the president would make the best choice,” Bennett said, “to not feel compelled to feel a quota, whether it was a gender quota or an ethnic quota or an ideological quota. Don't feel that you have to find the most conservative, the most mainstream, that you have to have a woman, or a Catholic, or a Jew, just go find the best person you can.”

Bennett, who is counsel to the Senate's majority whip, said he has heard from his Democratic friends that they have “no stomach for a filibuster” and that he hopes the process goes smoothly.

Hatch's spokesman Adam Elggren says the senator believes that Michael McConnell, a Utahn on the 10th Circuit Appeals Court and a professor at the University of Utah, ranked on the top of the list Bush was choosing from for O'Connor's successor.

---

Tribune reporters Elizabeth Neff and Thomas Burr contributed to this story.