Ellise Shafer Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve as a Supreme Court Justice, died on Friday, the Supreme Court announced in a statement.
She was 93. O’Connor died in Phoenix, Ariz. from complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness. Appointed by former President Ronald Reagan in 1981, O’Connor retired from the court in 2006.
A moderate conservative, O’Connor sat in the center of the court and oftentimes cast the deciding vote in important cases. She wrote the majority opinions for Grutter v.
Bollinger, a landmark affirmative action case, and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which ruled that the U.S. does not have the power to hold an American citizen indefinitely without due process protections.
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