By Pete Williams—NBC News
Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman elected to be a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the justice who cast the deciding vote in multiple crucial cases for more than a generation, died Friday, a court spokesperson said in a statement.
His cause of death was due to complications related to advanced dementia. He was 93.
From the early 1990s until her retirement in 2005, Day O'Connor was the deciding judge in the court's most contentious cases. His lack of a consistent judicial philosophy irritated some, but others praised his practical inclination as a moderating influence.
At times he sided with the court's conservatives, approving taxpayer-funded vouchers for religious school students, voting to end the 2000 Florida vote count between George W. Bush and Al Gore, and defending states' rights against federal control.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, speaking before the Senate hearing on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Sept. 9, 1981.John Duricka/AP file
But he also supported the court's liberals in defending affirmative action in college admissions, approving the creation of more precincts with a majority of African-American voters, and maintaining a wall of separation between government and religion.
O'Connor grew up on Lazy B, a 160,000-acre cattle ranch in the desert area that straddles the Arizona-New Mexico border.
She graduated from Stanford University School of Law, where she met her husband, John, and struck up a lifelong friendship with William Rehnquist, a classmate who would eventually become the nation's chief justice.