As far as I know, and seemingly confirmed by this recent New York Times article, SCOTUS justices receive virtually no special security/protection (for those who don’t click on the link, the article tells of how Justice Breyer was robbed by an armed bandit while on vacation). If I am right about the near absence of special security arrangements for the justices, it is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
To take one, pretty obvious, example: the murder of one justice (left or right leaning, depending on the views of the perpetrator) could have profound effects on issues such as abortion, capital punishment, etc. In fact, I’d say that taking out a SCOTUS justice is a much more rational target for a psychopath hoping to effect political change through assassination than virtually any other public official.
ISTM, that the issue is a no-brainer. The stakes are too high, and the target(s) too obvious to leave things the way they are. Notwithstanding the expense - and it will be pricey - SCOTUS justices need protection of the sort normally reserved for the POTUS or VPOTUS.
And, to hijack my own thread, let me ask - is there a process established to repopulate the SCOTUS in the event that all, or “several”, justices die at once (hey, it could even be due to a virus, but I think a bomb is more likely).
Resolved: SCOTUS justices, while they remain members of the Court, should receive Secret Service (or similar) protection and of a degree given to the POTUS or VPOTUS.
No, they should not receive protection from the Secret Service. If the SCOTUS should have expanded protection it should be a beefed up U.S. Marshals security detail. While mostly political, it makes good sense that it is the U.S. Capitol Police who protect Congressmen and the Secret Service that protects the President. It makes good sense that the SCOTUS have their own small security force around the courthouse and the Marshals watching over them when they travel.
No, they should not receive protection equivalent in scale to that of the POTUS or VPOTUS. The President receives an obscene amount of protection these days, and it just gets crazier every year. It would be vast overkill for the members of the SCOTUS. There are international leaders more important than SCOTUS members who receive 1/10th the protection of Obama and by and large it is rare for any of them to be attacked.
As an independent branch, I think the wishes of the SCOTUS should carry some weight. I suspect because of their lack of name recognition and appearance recognition in most of America (even many of the Americans who can name all nine couldn’t pick all nine out of a lineup) the SCOTUS members have a luxury unlike most big important political figures: anonymity. They can live mostly ordinary lives when not in court, and I suspect they prefer it that way. As the top judges in the Article III court system and a coequal branch of government they should have some say.
Since I posted my OP, I’ve had some second thoughts.
I would like to soften my ‘resolution’ (I have to admit that POTUS-like security would, in fact, be overkill).
Let me declare, instead, that SCOTUS justices should get an immediate and dramatic increase in their security coverage/protection. There, that’s better.
Has a US supreme court justice ever been the subject of an assassination attempt? What would a terrorist (as specified in post 4) hope to gain by killing a supreme court justice? What would a political activist hope to gain?
I know that in Australia, for example, when even lower court judges receive death threats they are given bodyguards until the situation is resolved. I don’t know that they need special protection around the clock.
It has never been needed. Occasionally a nutty preacher will pray for the death of a member of the court, but that seems to be the extent of it. We live in a very blessed country where political assassination in the open is very rare. Was RFK the last Senator publicly assassinated?
I think so. I’m pretty sure he, Huey Long and the guy that was killed at Jonestown are the only 20th century congresscritters that were successfully assassinated. It does seem to be pretty rare. Nuts seem to go for the President instead, every President seems to attract at least a few attempts during their tenure.
Although the court is supposed to be apolitical, in practice, it contains four right leaning justices, four left leaning justices, and one tie breaker. The idea would be that the terrorist would kill the justice opposite of his own political side when the President is of the same side, and the Senate won’t stop him.
And this is not entirely hypothetical: the idea of a right-leaning SCJ dying was common talk back when the Democrats had almost a super majority in the Senate. Fortunately, none of them were talking about forcing it to happen. But I do think it’s just a matter of time.
The decision should be made based on whatever level of threats the justices face. I assume that’s really pretty low and that greater protection is not necessary, but I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other.
That’s not an accurate representation of those discussions. This issue comes up every time there is a new president and to a lesser degree when control of the Senate changes hands. It’s not just about justices dying. It’s about the balance of power on the court and how it could change if there are deaths or retirements. The reason the retirement part of the discussion gets downplayed is because it’s acknowledged that these days, the justices often time their retirements so their replacement doesn’t change the balance of power on the court. Conservative justices don’t want to be replaced by a more liberal judge and vice versa, and of course the parties will fight like hell in the Senate to make sure it doesn’t happen. Nobody is talking about a justice being assassinated.
No doubt. Their place of work is bound to have extensive security measures already. The courts in Australia have hidden escape doors so that sitting judges can make a quick escape if they need to, private secure underground parking, metal detectors at the entrances, etc.
I think any sane politically motivated assassin would know enough to know that taking out any single supreme is not enough of a guarantee to effect the outcome of any court case because after the assassination a new supreme would be appointed and you can’t accurately predict who would replace them. For terrorists, I think it would be way easier, and cause more chaos, to take out the entire board of directors of a major bank, for example.
All that leaves are the kooks, for example someone wanting to take out a judge in retribution for a decision they held. Kooks can be dangerous, no doubt, but generally the more kooky they are, the less effective assassins they prove to be.
While this is correct Gabrielle Giffords was attacked a year ago and it is more luck than anything that she isn’t dead (getting shot in the head is usually fatal) and on the list of “successful” assassinations. Certainly wasn’t for lack of trying on her attacker’s part.
I have been pondering this for a day or two now, and can’t figure out what you are talking about. That link is to biographies of the justices. What is shocking about that? There are publicly available biographies of just about everyone who is anyone in government. The Navy has bios on its top civilian leaders and every admiral, and there’s like 200 of them.
Supreme Court judges don’t need super-duper special protection. I suppose if it became clear that they did, they’d get it, but so far they’ve pretty much been able to live normal lives and even wander around in public without too much trouble.
The U.S. Marshals Service is the organization resposible for judicial security (for federal judges). It does come up once in a while that a judge needs special protection. I think this happens most often with district court judges, who are trial judges. If a district court judge is overseeing a trial involving particularly violent organizations, he or she may be given special protection, which may include round-the-clock bodyguards. I know of a couple of instances where this happened.
But so far, the Supreme Court judges seem to be pretty secure.
Of course, it’s possible that a SC judge may get an especially credible threat, and be given protection, and we wouldn’t know about it.
I don’t think a 24 hour US Marshals escort would be out of line. Nobody has ever tried to kill a SCOTUS justice, but three lower court federal judges (including one circuit judge) were murdered in the eighties.
They’re lawyers, and most of them have been in the public sector most of their careers. Both equate to a lot of publicly available information.
This. Any Supreme Court Justice could walk into the local Denny’s without a head being turned. They don’t have that superstar quality outside of legal circles. And even if a lawyer was eating there at the time, the Justice could use the old “I get that all of the time” line.
