U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, the first black woman to serve as chief judge of the federal bench in Detroit, who spent much of her six-decade-long career shunning the spotlight, died over the weekend.

She was 84.

"It was with sadness that we have learned that Judge Anna Diggs Taylor passed away over the weekend," Court Administrator Dave Weaver wrote in an e-mail to staff Monday. "Our thoughts are with Judge Taylor's family at this difficult time."

According to court officials, Taylor died Saturday night at Sunrise of Grosse Pointe Woods, an assisted living center, following a brief illness.

More at freep.com:

More problems for state's prison food contractor: maggots found in chow served to inmates

More tiny homes come to Detroit, giving the homeless a shot at ownership

Taylor was a liberal with Democratic roots who defended civil rights workers in the South in the 1960s. She was appointed to the federal bench in 1979 by then President Jimmy Carter.

During her extensive legal career, the former City of Detroit staff attorney helped Coleman Young become the first elected black mayor of Detroit and later defended his efforts to integrate city government in the mid-1970s. Yet, as a judge, she declared unconstitutional a program that reserved municipal contracts for minority vendors.

During her years on the bench, she presided over several high-profile cases and did not shy away from controversy, according to a 2006 Free Press profile of Taylor.

In 2006, she struck down the Bush Administration’s warrantless domestic spying program that secretly intercepted international phone calls and e-mails of people in the pursuit of terrorism suspects.

In declaring the program unconstitutional, Taylor wrote: "It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights."

An appeals court later overturned her decision.

In 1984, she sentenced Ronald Ebens to 25 years in prison for beating 27-year-old Vincent Chin to death with a baseball bat outside a Highland Park bar. An appeals court overturned the verdict and Ebens was acquitted at retrial

In 1984, Taylor banned nativity scenes on municipal property in Birmingham and Dearborn in lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

That same year, she publicly rebuked then-Chief U.S. District Judge John Feikens for racially insensitive remarks about the ability of Young and other black leaders to run city government. They later became friends.

Despite her role in numerous high profile cases, Taylor avoided the spotlight and kept a low profile. Perhaps most impressive, say lawyers who appeared before her, was her thoughtful approach in treating defendants. Whether high profile or common folk, they said, she treated everyone with the same respect.

"She was gracious. She was considerate, and she gave everyone who appeared in front of her respect," said longtime criminal defense attorney Bill Swor, who appeared before Taylor in several cases. "Everyone felt that they had been given a fair hearing, and she genuinely tried to honor the spirit as well as the letter of the law."

Taylor was born Anna Katherine Johnston in 1932 in Washington, D.C. Her father was treasurer of Howard University. Her mother was a homemaker and a business teacher.

After the ninth grade, Taylor's parents sent her to Northfield School for Girls in East Northfield, Mass. — one of the few prep schools that accepted black students. She went on to study at the prestigious Barnard College at Columbia University in New York, where she earned a degree in economics in 1954. Three years later, she received a law degree from Yale. She attended on a scholarship and was one of only five women in her graduating class.

In 1960, she married Charles Diggs Jr., the son of a wealthy Detroit mortician and a rising star in Congress. They moved to Detroit, where she became a Wayne County assistant prosecutor.

Taylor went to Mississippi in 1964, five months after giving birth to her first child, to defend civil-rights workers who were jailed for registering black people to vote. In 1966, Taylor became an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit, but left the following year to manage her husband's Detroit congressional office.

They were later divorced and Taylor in 1976 married S. Martin Taylor, then director of the Michigan Employment Security Commission.

Three years later, after she campaigned for Jimmy Carter's presidential bid, Carter rewarded her with a lifetime appointment to U.S. District Court in Detroit, making her the first black female federal district judge in the U.S. 6th Circuit, which includes Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Lawyers have described Taylor as fair, pleasant and dignified, yet in firm control of her courtroom.

"She is smart as hell," one lawyer told the 2006 Almanac of the Federal Judiciary.

Taylor is survived by her husband, S. Martin Taylor, son Douglass Johnston Diggs, and daughter Carla Diggs Smith, as well as four grandchildren and a brother.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the Community Foundation of Southeastern Michigan, 333 W. Fort Street, Suite 2010, Detroit, MI 48226. A memorial service will be held on Jan. 6 at 11 a.m. at the Cathedral Church of St Paul, 4800 Woodward, Detroit.