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Conservative Supreme Court Justices have seen protests at their homes and threats made against them since their draft decision to end Roe V Wade was leaked and now the Department of Justice is taking action.
After ongoing protests for days, which are said to be in violation of the law, Attorney general Merrick Garland has ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to increase security at the homes of the targeted Justices.
“Attorney General Garland continues to be briefed on security matters related to the Supreme Court and Supreme Court Justices. The Attorney General directed the U.S. Marshals Service to help ensure the Justices’ safety by providing additional support to the Marshal of the Supreme Court and Supreme Court Police,” Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said.
“The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) has a strong partnership with the Supreme Court Police, and upon the request of the Marshal of the Supreme Court, the USMS does provide assistance as needed,” a spokesperson for the Marshals said.
“The USMS is currently assisting the Marshal of the Supreme Court in response to increased security concerns stemming from the unauthorized release of the draft opinion; however, the USMS does not comment on specific security measures,” they said.
The draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico.
“The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right,” Politico reported.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
“We, therefore, hold the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Alito writes in the document, labeled the ‘Opinion of the Court.’
Last week, after some liberals became enraged, and even threatened the Supreme Court Justices who, in a leaked draft, made a preliminary vote to end Roe V Wade, Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion, canceled an appearance he had scheduled.
The Court did not give a reason for the cancelation but it comes after a liberal group have vowed to protest outside of the homes of the conservative Justices, Reuters reported.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has canceled an appearance at a judicial conference set to begin on Thursday after a draft decision he wrote indicating the high court would overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed the right to abortion nationwide was leaked.
Alito had been set to appear at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ judicial conference, a gathering of judges from the New Orleans-based federal appeals court and the district courts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, a person familiar with the matter said.
But he has since canceled, the person said, and Patricia McCabe, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court, on Wednesday said he was not attending. The spokesperson gave no reason for why Alito, who is the justice assigned to hear emergency appeals from the 5th Circuit, was not going.
But intimidation tactics have not worked as the majority of Supreme Court justices who signed on to a decision overturning the controversial Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973 legalizing abortion in all 50 states remain intact, according to a Sunday report.
The Washington Post, citing conservative sources within the court, reported that the four justices who agreed with Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion — Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — have thus far refused to change their minds.
The report comes nearly a week after an unprecedented leak of Alito’s opinion which some outside political observers have suggested was done to pressure those justices into reversing their opinion.
The report also noted, however, that the court’s other nominal conservative, the George W. Bush-appointed chief justice, John Roberts, continues to oppose the outright reversal of Roe and instead favors supporting the Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks, which was the case under consideration.
