The fate of the man accused of seeking to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh could emerge by Friday in the United States District Court in Maryland. Nicholas John Roske was armed to the teeth with a Glock pistol and a tactical knife when he was arrested lurking near Justice Kavanaugh’s home almost two years ago. The shocking nature of his ambition — assassination — hasn’t deterred the critics of the court suggesting that the justices are the real enemy.

While the fate of Mr. Roske’s legal case is bogged down in the courts, the Supreme Court is asking Congress for more security funding. The request follows Justice Samuel Alito’s warning that he and his fellow justices have become “targets of assassination.” The gravity of the threats facing the justices, though, isn’t slowing the left’s crusade against the court’s legitimacy and attacks on the integrity of the members of its conservative majority.

Speaker Pelosi reckons the high court is itself “on trial” because it agreed to weigh President Trump’s argument over the chief executive’s legal immunity. Senator Whitehouse, one of the court’s most ambitious critics, in a new law review article charges the conservative majority with threatening the “legitimacy” of the institution as they “aggrandize judicial power to political ends.” An Atlantic polemic accuses the justices of “unprincipled politicking.”

Following a drumbeat of criticism of Justice Clarence Thomas for accepting gifts from wealthy friends, the Nation went so far as to contend the court’s senior jurist “broke the law” and asked “Why isn’t he being prosecuted?” It’s no wonder, amid this atmosphere of acrimony and suspicion, that Justice Alito lamented “I’m not really supposed to go any place by myself” — meaning, without security. Yet the critics of Justice Alito and his colleagues are undeterred.

Justice Alito points to the leaked opinion overturning Roe v. Wade as a threat to the Nine. The leaked opinion, Justice Alito contends, in effect painted a target on the court’s conservative members. “It was rational for people to believe that they might be able to stop the decision,” Justice Alito told the Wall Street Journal, “by killing one of us.” That fear was borne out when Mr. Roske was arrested with a firearm outside the home of Justice Kavanaugh.

Mr. Roske — whose case in federal court has been effectively placed on hold, with an update from lawyers possible by Friday — told police that he wanted to murder “a specific United States Supreme Court Justice” and that “he was upset about the leak of a recent Supreme Court draft decision regarding the right to abortion.” Mr. Roske’s threat to Justice Kavanaugh came just weeks after the leak of the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. 

The leak led activists to march outside the homes of justices, skirting the line between peaceful protest and intimidation. These activists could be said to have been following the lead set by Senator Schumer, who in 2020 warned Justice Kavanaugh against any rulings that contravened liberal orthodoxy on abortion. “I want to tell you, Kavanaugh,” he bellowed and gesticulated in 2020. “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”  

At the time, Chief Justice Roberts warned that Mr. Schumer’s words were “threatening” and “dangerous.” The charges against Mr. Roske illustrate why. The delay in trying the case against him suggests that “it’s likely the government and defense counsel are negotiating a plea deal,” the Washington Times reported in October, and “could be exploring mental health evaluations.” Either way, the Times reports, “Mr. Roske may never stand trial.” 

Whatever the outcome of Mr. Roske’s case, the Nine appears warranted in its request of an additional $19.4 million in federal spending, as Reuters reports, “to bolster security for the nine justices” and shift to their own police force security for their homes. The court points to “evolving risks that require continuous protection.” We’ll see whether the Democratic Senate will vote $19 million better to protect the justices. Cheap at the price, we say.