Gregory Kellam Scott, Colorado’s youngest and first Black Supreme Court justice, died in his home in Indiana on March 31. He was 72.

Colorado Gov. Roy Romer elevated Scott to the bench in 1993; Scott served on the bench until 2000. Among his most controversial opinions during his time on Colorado’s high court was a concurrence in the landmark case Evans v. Romer. That case invalidated Colorado’s Amendment 2, a voter initiative that prevented local governments from enacting ordinances prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 1999, he authored the majority opinion in Hill v. Thomas, upholding a state law requiring protestors to stay eight feet away from people entering abortion clinics in Colorado.