When I worked in DC, I used to visit the Supreme Court about once a week. When the justices weren’t hearing cases, it wasn’t unusual to see them outside the building, often with a federal marshal by their side.
I thought about this over the weekend when I heard that Justice David Souter had been attacked by some youths while jogging Friday night. Fortunately, Souter wasn’t seriously harmed and the incident seems entirely unrelated to his position. In all likelihood, his attackers had no idea they were accosting a member of the Supreme Court.
But if I’ve seen marshals walking with justices to lunch, why was Souter alone while running in DC — at night? For that matter, Scalia was in Mississippi recently, speaking to students when a marshal confiscated two journalists’ tape recorders. In light of that level of “protection,” Souter can’t even get a jogging partner?
For those of you who had similar questions, Slate’s Brendan Koerner and USA Today’s Joan Biskupic wrote interesting items yesterday about Supreme Court security.
Koerner, for example, noted that the U.S. Secret Service “has nothing to do with the court personnel.” After a 1982 incident in which then-Justice Byron White was assaulted:
Congress swiftly heeded Burger’s wishes, and since then Supreme Court Police officers have been available to guard the justices wherever they may roam. However, when the justices travel around the country, they are sometimes protected by federal marshals rather than Supreme Court cops. Whether a marshal is assigned in lieu of a Supreme Court Police officer depends on the staffing situation at the court building and on who is arranging the trip — if it’s another branch of the government, they’ll usually provide a marshal or two.
As the Souter assault makes clear, of course, the Supreme Court Police aren’t exactly omnipresent bodyguards. A court spokeswoman refused to tell Slate the particulars of when and why a justice can decline protection. But if the force’s rules are anything like those of the Secret Service…it’s likely the justice’s personal prerogative as to when they’d like a bodyguard and when they’d prefer to be left alone.
In other words, Souter was alone because he wanted to be alone.
Biskupic’s article added that attacks on justices are rare but not entirely unprecedented.
In 1996, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s purse was snatched as she was returning home from a Georgetown restaurant. She was shaken up but not harmed.
In 1985, a bullet shattered a window at the suburban Virginia apartment of Justice Harry Blackmun. Police said it appeared to be a random shot fired from a long distance.
One of the more startling attacks occurred in Salt Lake City in 1982, when Justice Byron White was punched in the head by a man who rushed up from the audience during a speech. White was not seriously hurt. As he went on with his speech, White, a former football star who played for the University of Colorado, reportedly said, “I’ve been hit harder than that before in Utah.”
Only one of these attacks was motivated by a political animus, but still, I’d feel a lot better if Souter were more careful in the future.