Melanie Eversley

USA TODAY

Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam's religion.

The body of New York State Court of Appeals Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first black woman appointed to the state's highest court, was found Wednesday afternoon floating in the Hudson River, according to police.

Her fully clothed body was found in the water off 132nd Street, in Harlem, where she lives, one day after she was reported missing. The 65-year-old justice was pronounced dead by emergency medical personnel, police said.

There were no signs of trauma on her body and no signs of criminality, according to police. Her husband identified the body.

Officials were looking at suicide as a possible cause of death, CNN, The New York Times and the Daily News reported, citing unnamed law enforcement sources. NYPD told USA TODAY that the determination of cause was up to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. OCME spokeswoman Julie Bolcer said Thursday via e-mail that "the cause and manner of death are pending further studies following today's examination."

Abdus-Salaam was known for writing a landmark decision that helped LGBT parents and other parents without biological ties gain the same parenting rights as biological parents.

New York politicians and activist groups hailed her legacy.

"Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist and a force for good," Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who appointed her to the Court of Appeals in 2013, said on Twitter. "On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend my deepest sympathies."

On learning of her death, many groups lauded Abdus-Salaam as the first female Muslim on the appeals court bench, an error that appears to have begun with a press release issued in 2013 by a member of the state senate's judiciary committee announcing her appointment. But Gary Spencer, a spokesman for the appeals court, said the jurist was not Muslim.

"It is true that she was not a Muslim, although she did not care if people thought she was," Spencer said in an email to USA TODAY.

"This is tragic," tweeted Muslim Advocates, a civil rights organization based in Oakland. "We share our condolences to Judge Abdus-Salaam's family and to the people of NY. Stay strong."

First Muslim on New York's highest court was a 'trail-blazing jurist'

Lambda Legal, a New York-based organization that worked with Abdus-Salaam on the parenting case, said her death marked a great loss to the advocacy community.

"Judge Abdus-Salaam saw clearly how damaging it was to keep LGBT parents from their children," the organization said in a statement on its website. "We owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude. She touched the lives of many New Yorkers; her legacy will live on."

Abdus-Salaam was a native of Washington, D.C., according to the New York State Court of Appeals. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, she began her legal career as a staff attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services. She joined the bench in 1992, following her election to the New York City Civil Court. The state Senate confirmed her appointment to the Court of Appeals in 2013.