Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said “threatening” protests against the Supreme Court are part of a campaign to try to intimidate the justices, and he lamented the fact that neither the Biden Justice Department nor local prosecutors attempted to charge those who engaged in the demonstrations.
“I think there has been a campaign to try to intimidate the court and some of the justices because of displeasure with some of our decisions. And if the campaign to intimidate us and affect our votes does not succeed, the next objective is to discredit the court as a whole or at least some of the justices,” he told The Washington Times.
“I think it’s alarming. I think it contributes to a decline in public respect for the court and can ultimately have a serious effect on our standing,” he said.
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He was particularly troubled by unruly protests in 2022, after the leak of his draft opinion in the Dobbs case that would eventually overturn Roe v. Wade and erase a national right to abortion.
“It is illegal under federal law to try to influence a judge’s decision by improper means. Putting pressure or intimidation by having a threatening protest outside a judge’s house — one can certainly argue it falls under the federal statute,” he said.
He said state laws in Maryland and Virginia, where the justices live, also could have been used, but weren’t.
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“Nothing was done under the federal statute and the local prosecutors in Montgomery County, where some of the justices live, and Fairfax County, where other of the justices live, did nothing,” he said.
Asked if he’d made referrals, Justice Alito said he didn’t do it personally, but believed there were “communications” to the local prosecutors.
“They both made clear they were not going to do it,” he said.
The federal law carries a five-year statute of limitations, so the Trump Justice Department could still pursue a case if it wanted.
“You would have to go back and identify the protesters,” Justice Alito said.
He recounted one protest that popped up unexpectedly outside his home ahead of a visit from his grandchild, where the protesters were insulting his wife, yelling “F—- Martha-Ann” and using drums and blowing horns.
The Washington Times sought comment from the Justice Department, the commonwealth’s attorney in Fairfax County and the state’s attorney in Montgomery County.
Justice Alito said the leak of the draft opinion made the five justices in the majority targets for assassination.
Indeed, a California man, Nicholas Roske, traveled to the Washington area and showed up at the Maryland home of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh one morning in June 2022. Roske, who now identifies as a woman and goes by Sophie Roske, was armed with a gun, a tactical knife, pepper spray, lock pick tools and zip ties.
A last-minute call to a sister averted the attack, with Roske deciding to surrender to police.
Media mess
Justice Alito spoke to The Times in his office at the Supreme Court this week to coincide with publication of his new book, “So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court and our Country.”
The book is a compilation of speeches he has given over his two decades on the court. It ranges from a defense of his originalist approach to constitutional interpretation to the achievements of Italian Americans to Thomas Aquinas — both the learned saint and the two branches of the Catholic college that now bear his name here in the U.S.
He told The Times that he wanted the speeches to have a wider audience than just the people who were in the room to hear him.
“I’d like more people to read these, and make of them what they will,” he said.
Justice Alito has said recently that he has pondered retirement, but he waved away questions about evaluating the legacy he’s built.
He was bemused by NPR’s erroneous report earlier this summer that he was already retiring.
“I was surprised,” he said. “It’s kind of still hard for me to figure out how it could have happened.”
He delighted in some social media wag’s idea to take the infamous “Dewey Defeats Truman” photo and use artificial intelligence to replace his face on Truman, and rewrite the headline to read “Alito Retires.”
NPR has said longtime court reporter Nina Totenberg misinterpreted a remark by a colleague and assumed it meant Justice Alito was retiring.
Justice Alito chided some news organizations for invasive coverage of the justices — such as The New York Times’ report earlier this month covering floating kayak protests outside Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s summer vacation home on Hupper Island in Maine.
“There have been stories that unnecessarily invade justices’ privacy. I thought that was the case with the NYT story about the chief justice’s vacation,” Justice Alito said.
“There has been unfair reporting in some instances, and very disparate treatment of justices. [Fellow Justice] Clarence Thomas and I have been subjected to a degree of scrutiny that goes far beyond what was experienced by some of my colleagues,” he said.
Asked about lower court judges’ growing criticism of President Trump, and of other judges, he urged all sides to cool it.
“There should be restraint in all directions,” he said, “It can undermine faith in the whole constitutional structure.”
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