What kind of security do Supreme Court Justices receive?

[SamuelA]

Umm, what?

Remember all those abortion protestors who bomb clinics? Are they just utter morons? (I guess, in the way that they decide all life is sacred yet simultaneously tend to be against welfare for even mothers with young children, they are…)

So the militant “pro life” crowd could commit just 5 murders and get the law of the land changed? In their own belief structure, they think that an abortion equals a murder and there’s something like a million of them per year, so if they were capable of math…

And vice versa. Someone could change the interpretation of the laws of this entire country in crucial ways by murdering just 1-2 supreme court justices.

Why doesn’t this happen all the time? Murdering a President is pointless, everyone in his line of succession is going to be of very similar beliefs and policies. Not to mention the army of snipers guarding him making it difficult.

[DWMarch]

@Scumpup

Is there any history of attempted assassination of SCOTUS justices?

It is part of the plot of The Pelican Brief by John Grisham.

[mhendo]

@Ravenman

Apparently not much security for the justices. Breyer was mugged in 2004, then robbed on a Caribbean vacation in 2012, then had his house broken into around the same time.

It was not Breyer who was mugged in '04; it was David Souter. It happened while he was jogging.

[mhendo]

@Scumpup

Is there any history of attempted assassination of SCOTUS justices?

Emphasis mine.

@DWMarch

It is part of the plot of The Pelican Brief by John Grisham.

Just a heads-up: this is not a historical book.

[DWMarch]

@mhendo

Emphasis mine.Just a heads-up: this is not a historical book.

Neither was Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor, published in 1994.

[LurkerInNJ]

@Blalron

They just walk around unescorted, like ordinary folk? That seems so weird to me.

Not in my (somewhat brief) experience.

The Forum on Law, Culture and Society at the NYU School of Law had an event in the Tishman Auditorium about 4 years ago and one of the Justices attended; as did I. It wasn’t exactly a dicey crowd. Hundreds of students, some professors. They were escorted in without fanfare, but we were not allowed to leave the auditorium until after the Justice was escorted out and in their vehicle.