Supreme Court Under Threat

The sight of Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan appearing before Congress to request more money for the high court’s security focuses the mind on the growing threats to the safety of the Nine. The justices are requesting $14.6 million more in security than they did last year as part of a total budget of $225 million, up 10 percent. The visit on Tuesday was the first public congressional testimony by a justice in seven years.That Justices Barrett and Kagan would earmark the beginning of their summer vacation to go hats in hands to lawmakers underscores how serious the peril has become. Justice Barrett explained that “I didn’t expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one.” Justice Kagan acknowledged that “threats have come very close.”Those threats have grown in number, Justice Kagan testified. The Supreme Court Police, she said, tallied that they are up 25 percent last year and are expected to climb by another 38 percent this year. Justices Barrett and Kagan both point to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health as a turning point. Justice Kagan explained that “When personal threats increased following the Dobbs leak, we expanded our residential security and threat assessment activities.” Senator Susan Collins — who will soon be fighting for her political life — put it well during the hearing when she contended that “it is increasingly dangerous to be a Supreme Court justice these days. It’s appalling to me that some of the rhetoric is coming from public officials on both sides of the aisle who should know better.” She reckons that “completely inappropriate rhetoric against the Supreme Court endangers the lives of the justices.”In 2020, years before Dobbs, Senator Chuck Schumer warned: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” While he walked back those remarks, the threat was clear. A decade earlier, President Obama lashed the court for Citizens United. Cameras caught Justice Samuel Alito mouthing “not true” to that critique.Torching the court has become a bipartisan pastime. After the justices rebuffed President Trump on tariffs, he called the high court’s “Democratic” justices “unpatriotic,” “disloyal to the Constitution,” and a “disgrace to our nation.” He called the “Republican” ones “fools,” “lapdogs,” and “an embarrassment to their families.” He reckoned that the ruling was the result of the court having been “swayed by foreign interests.”In 2022 a resident of California traveled to the Maryland home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh armed with a gun, zip ties, and burglary tools with the intent to assassinate him. Sophie Roske — then Nicholas John Roske — alerted the Marshals guarding the justice and confessed to the plot. She cited frustration with Dobbs. Roske pleaded guilty and has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison.Some online observers of the court have surmised that the threats to Justice Coney Barrett in particular after Dobbs have contributed to a more centrist tilt to her jurisprudence. We think that is a reductive view. During Justice Barrett’s testimony to Congress she noted that the threats are “designed to intimidate or designed maybe to punish” the justices. She maintained, though, that she and her colleagues work “without fear or favor.” The Oyez call goes “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.” It is no slighting of Divine Providence, though, for Congress to ensure that the court is protected. Lady Justice may be blind, but those entrusted with ensuring the well being of her interpreters need to have their eyes wide open. For the justices, that means round the clock protection. We can imagine few wiser outlays of money than spending to protect our sages.

Supreme Court Under Threat

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