DETROIT (AP) - Michigan's first black female federal judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, has died at age 84.
Taylor's death was announced Monday to staff at the Detroit federal courthouse. Court administrator David Weaver says she died over the weekend. No cause was disclosed.
Taylor was appointed to the federal bench in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. She was chief judge in Michigan's Eastern District in 1997 and 1998. She retired in 2011.
In 2006, Taylor made headlines when she said an eavesdropping program without court oversight by the Bush administration was unconstitutional. An appeals court overturned the decision, saying the American Civil Liberties Union and the others didn't have standing to sue.
