Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve as a justice on the US Supreme Court, wielded enormous influence as the key centrist on a sharply divided bench, where she often displayed a preference for pragmatism over ideology.
Once spoken of as the most powerful woman in America, O'Connor often confounded both her critics and supporters during her nearly 25-year tenure on the nation's high court, refusing to be pigeonholed by the left or the right.
It was her refusal to be placed on either side of the political spectrum, or to be seen as merely the one woman on the bench, that made her a pivotal justice from the early 1980s until her retirement in early 2006.
