The death of Antonin Scalia: Chaos, confusion and conflicting reports - WP
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The "El Presidente" suite at Cibolo Creek Ranch in Shafter, Tex., where Justice Antonin Scalia’s body was discovered. (Matthew Busch/Getty Images)
MARFA, Tex. — In the cloistered chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia’s days were highly regulated and predictable. He met with clerks, wrote opinions and appeared for arguments in the august courtroom on a schedule set months in advance.
Yet as details of Scalia’s sudden death trickled in Sunday, it appeared that the hours afterward were anything but orderly. The man known for his elegant legal opinions and profound intellect was found dead in his room at a hunting resort by the resort’s owner, who grew worried when Scalia didn’t appear at breakfast Saturday morning.
It then took hours for authorities in remote West Texas to find a justice of the peace, officials said Sunday. When they did, she pronounced Scalia dead of natural causes without seeing the body and without ordering an autopsy. A second justice of the peace, who was called but couldn’t get to Scalia’s body in time, said she would have made a different decision.
“If it had been me . . . I would want to know,” Juanita Bishop, a justice of the peace in Presidio, Tex., said in an interview Sunday of the chaotic hours after Scalia’s death at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a luxury compound less than an hour from the Mexican border and about 40 miles south of Marfa.
As official Washington tried to process what his demise means for politics and the law, some details of his final hours remained opaque. As late as Sunday afternoon, for example, there were conflicting reports about whether an autopsy should have been performed. A manager at the El Paso funeral home where Scalia’s body was taken said his family made it clear that they did not want one.
Washington Post reporter Robert Barnes explains where the Supreme Court stands after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and how the vacant seat will impact the presidential election. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
Meanwhile, Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara acknowledged that she pronounced Scalia dead by phone, without seeing his body. Instead, she spoke to law enforcement officials at the scene — who assured her “there were no signs of foul play” — and Scalia’s physician in Washington, who said that the 79-year-old justice suffered from a host of chronic conditions.
“He was having health issues,’’ Guevara said, adding that she is awaiting a statement from Scalia’s doctor that will be added to his death certificate when it is issued later this week.
Guevara also rebutted a report by a Dallas TV station that quoted her as saying that Scalia had died of “myocardial infarction.” In an interview with The Washington Post, she said she meant only that his heart had stopped.
“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Guevara said. “He died of natural causes.”
In a statement Sunday, the U.S. Marshals Service, which provides security for Supreme Court justices, said Scalia had declined a security detail while at the ranch, so marshals were not present when he died. “Deputy U.S. Marshals from the Western District of Texas responded immediately upon notification of Justice Scalia’s passing,” the statement said.
One thing was clear: Scalia died in his element, doing what he loved, at a luxury resort that has played host to movie stars and European royalty, and is famous for bird hunts and bigger game, such as bison and mountain lions.
“Other than being with his family or in church, there’s no place he’d rather be than on a hunt,” said Houston lawyer Mark Lanier, who took Scalia hunting for wild boar, deer and even alligators. Lanier said he first learned of Scalia’s love for hunting through former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “He’ll do anything if you take him hunting,” Lanier recalled O’Connor saying.
The life of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
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Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79.
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Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79.
Oct. 8, 2010 Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court. Larry Downing/Reuters
Scalia had recently returned from a trip to Asia, where his last public event was a book signing in Hong Kong. John Poindexter, the Houston businessman who owns the Cibolo Creek Ranch, said Sunday that Scalia and a friend arrived Friday by chartered aircraft, traveling through Houston. At the ranch, Scalia joined about 35 other people invited by Poindexter, who declined to name the other guests.
Later that day, Scalia went out with the group to hunt blue quail. But “he did not exert himself,” Poindexter said. “He got out of the hunting vehicle, and walked around some.’’
Law enforcement officials said Scalia attended a private party that night with the other guests, and left to go to bed early. But Poindexter said that didn’t seem unusual: All of the guests were tired from traveling to the remote ranch, as well as the day’s other activities. Everyone was in bed by 10 p.m., he said.
Scalia’s behavior, Poindexter said, “was entirely natural and normal.’’
The next morning, Scalia did not show up for breakfast. Poindexter at first thought he might be sleeping late, but eventually grew concerned. Late Saturday morning, he and one other person knocked on the door to Scalia’s room, an expansive suite called the “El Presidente.” When there was no answer, they went inside.
“Everything was in perfect order. He was in his pajamas, peacefully, in bed,” Poindexter said.
Emergency personnel and officials from the U.S. Marshals Service were called to the scene, then two local judges who also serve as justices of the peace, Guevara said. Both were out of town, she said — not unusual in a remote region where municipalities are miles apart.
Guevara also was out of town, but she said she agreed to declare Scalia dead based on the information from law enforcement officials and Scalia’s doctor, citing Texas laws that permit a justice of the peace to declare someone dead without seeing the body.
On Saturday evening, Scalia’s body was loaded into a hearse and escorted to the Sunset Funeral Home in El Pasoby a procession of about 20 law enforcement officers. It arrived there about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, according to funeral home manager Chris Lujan. The funeral home is about 31/2 hours from the ranch where Scalia died.
About 3:30 a.m. Sunday, Scalia’s family declined to have an autopsy performed, Lujan said, so the body was being prepared for funeral and was expected to be transported back to Washington on Monday. Late Sunday, it was under guard by six law enforcement officials, including U.S. marshals and Texas state troopers, he said.
Funeral arrangements for Scalia — a devoted Catholic who was given the last rites by a Catholic priest — were unclear Sunday.
Horwitz and Markon reported from Washington. Lana Straub, a freelance writer in Marfa, Tex., and Alice Crites and Robert Barnes in Washington contributed to his report.
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Jason Whitely, WFAA 2:08 p.m. EST February 14, 2016
A man guards the entrance to Cibolo Creek Ranch in Shafter, Texas, on Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016.(Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, AP)
MARFA, Texas — The death certificate for U.S. Supreme Court will list myocardial infarction — a heart attack — as the official cause of death, Judge Cinderela Guevara told WFAA on Sunday.
Guevara was shopping Saturday in the neighboring town of when county Sheriff Danny Dominguez called her on her cellphone after lunch.
“He says, 'Judge, I’m at Cibolo Creek Ranch, and a Supreme Court justice has just passed away, and I need someone here immediately. Both justices of the peace are out of town,'” Guevara recounted.
“I said, 'Sheriff, what did you say? Which Supreme Court Justice died at Cibolo Creek Ranch?’ And the phone went dead, because our connection was very bad,” she explained.
Cell phone service is spotty in far West Texas. There’s no service at the ranch where Scalia passed away. Guevara said Dominguez called back repeatedly for 20 minutes, at the mercy of cell service.
Guevara said she pronounced Scalia dead over the phone at 1:52 p.m. on Saturday. She planned to drive to the ranch — about 30 minutes south of — but returned when a U.S. Marshal told her by phone: “It’s not necessary for you to come, judge. If you’re asking for an autopsy, that’s what we need to clarify.”
Guevara said she wanted to clarify details of Scalia’s death before deciding whether to order an autopsy.
“As part of my investigation, one of the things I did ask the sheriff and the U.S. Marshal: 'Were there any signs of foul play?' And they said, ‘Absolutely not.’ At that time I still wanted to be careful, and asked them if (Scalia’s) physician would call me.”
The justice’s personal doctor called her at 8 p.m. Saturday night. She said the physician told her that Scalia had a shoulder problem last week and underwent an MRI. Scalia also suffered several chronic ailments, Guevara said.
“I felt comfortable what I knew was going on with him physically,” she said.
On Saturday night, at his family’s request, Justice Scalia’s remains were moved from the ranch to El Paso, where a funeral home will embalm his body and prepare it to be flown to back to the East Coast.
Guevara said she will fill out the official death certificate to be permanently filed in Presidio County.
“After I did my job, yes, I kept playing it over and over in my mind and thought, ‘Oh my God. History is being made in Presidio County,” Guevara told WFAA. “It’s something I’ll never forget.”
Scalia, 79, was visiting the ranch with friends on a hunting trip. Guevara said she did not know he was here.
“I just feel that we have lost a great defender of the Constitution, and it’s a big loss for the United States of America,” she said.
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The life of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
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Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79.
Caption
Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79.
Oct. 8, 2010 Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court. Larry Downing/Reuters
Justice Antonin Scalia, the longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court and an intellectual leader of the conservative legal movement, died Saturday, and his death set off an immediate political battle about the future of the court and its national role.
Scalia, 79, was found dead at a hunting resort in Texas after he did not appear for breakfast, law enforcement officials said. A cause of death was not immediately reported.
President Obama, who disagreed with Scalia’s jurisprudence, nevertheless praised him as “a larger-than-life presence on the bench” and a “brilliant legal mind [who] influenced a generation of judges, lawyers and students, and profoundly shaped the legal landscape.”
Obama said he would nominate a successor, even though the Senate’s Republican leadership and its presidential candidates said an election-year confirmation was out of the question.
Washington Post reporter Robert Barnes explains where the Supreme Court stands after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and how the vacant seat will impact the presidential election. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
Scalia’s sudden death casts a cloud of uncertainty over a Supreme Court term filled with some of the most controversial issues facing the nation: abortion, affirmative action, the rights of religious objectors to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, and the president’s powers on immigration and deportation.
An eight-member court could split on all of those issues.
It would seem to assure that the Supreme Court, often far down the list of voters’ concern when choosing a president, would become a prominent issue in the campaign.
Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, soon to be 83, is the oldest member of the court, while Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is the same age as Scalia.
The jurist’s death leaves the court with three consistent conservatives — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — and Kennedy, like Scalia a Ronald Reagan appointee but one who often sides with the court’s liberals on social issues, such as same-sex marriage.
The court has four consistent liberals: Ginsburg plus Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Despite their sharp ideological differences, the justices nevertheless often proclaim their personal affinity for one another, and it seemed especially true regarding Scalia.
Antonin Scalia died on Saturday, Feb. 13. Here's a look back on his tenure, his judicial philosophy and the legacy he leaves behind. (Monica Akhtar,Natalie Jennings/The Washington Post)
Ginsburg, with whom he served as an appeals court judge, was his closest friend on the court, and he and Kagan bonded when he took her on hunting trips.
The Supreme Court provided no details of Scalia’s death, only a statement from Roberts after reports of his death from Texas news media.
“On behalf of the court and retired justices, I am saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away,” Roberts said in the statement. “He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues. His passing is a great loss to the court and the country he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his family.”
Scalia died at Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend area of Texas near the town of Shafter, according to a person in law enforcement.
That person said Scalia did not appear for breakfast when the rest of the party did. People in the group thought he might be sleeping in, but eventually the host of the group became concerned and found him dead, the source said.
Although the fate of Scalia’s successor seems likely to consume political Washington, the outcome of the many controversies will be complicated by an eight-member court. If the court ties in deciding a case, the decision of the appeals court remains in place, without setting a nationwide precedent.
For instance, the court already was working with one less justice in a case involving the use of race in an admissions case at the University of Texas.
Kagan sat out the case, presumably because she worked on the issue when she was Obama’s solicitor general. That means only seven justices would decide whether the appeals court was correct to uphold the program.
The court is scheduled to hear in April arguments about Obama’s plan to shield more than 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
The executive action was put on hold by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. A split court would uphold that decision and keep Obama from implementing it before he leaves office next January.
In the case of faith-based hospitals, colleges and charities that object to providing employees with contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act, the court is trying to sort out competing court decisions.
Most appeals courts that have decided the controversy found in favor of the Obama administration. But one did not. Presumably, a split court would mean the law is interpreted differently depending on the region of the country.
Although Scalia was a polarizing figure, reaction to his death brought accolades even from those who disagreed vehemently with his view of the law.
“His indomitable conviction and his fierce intelligence left a lasting imprint — not just on the way the Supreme Court resolves cases, but on the legal landscape that he helped to transform.,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement. “A lion of American law has left the stage, and it is up to all of us — every American — to keep our national constitutional dialogue as lively and as learned as he left it.”
Sari Horwitz and Paul Kane contributed to this report.
Robert Barnes has been a Washington Post reporter and editor since 1987. He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006.
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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
WASHINGTON – The seemingly quick conclusion that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died of “natural causes” this weekend is prompting calls for an autopsy and toxicological reports by activists and across social media platforms.
William Gheen, president of the Americans for Legal Immigration political action committee, noted the media’s “rush” to proclaim Scalia’s death in a rented room in a resort in Texas as either “natural causes” or heart attack within hours of the discovery of his body.
“Anytime a head of state, member of Congress, or the most conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court is found dead, an extensive autopsy and toxicology examination should be both immediate and mandatory,” said Gheen. “The horrid reaction and comments about his death expressed by many liberals online illustrate that Scalia was hated by many people. His death hands the power of the Supreme Court to the modern left for the first time in American history. The court can now vote, even without a replacement of Scalia, to radically change the United States of America. Scalia’s death means the Supreme Court is now very likely to rubber stamp Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty orders, tear down Republican drawn districts in many states including North Carolina, and take deep left turns on abortion, gun rights, or anything the liberals have ever dreamed of. Scalia was a solid vote against Obama’s immigration orders to be decided by April of this year. We do not contend there is a conspiracy, we contend that there should be no doubts, and the way authorities and the media are rushing conclusions will leave major doubts and legitimate concerns about a death that could lead to a radical political transformation of America to the left.”
The body arrived at a Texas funeral home a day after he died while on a hunting trip. Chris Lujan of Sunset Funeral Homes in El Paso said the body of the late justice arrived early Sunday. Scalia had been staying at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Presidio County, Texas, during a quail hunting trip, said federal officials. He was 79.
Presidio County Judge Cinderella Guevara, who pronounced Scalia dead, said the death certificate will say the cause of death was natural, and that he died of a heart attack. She said no autopsy was necessary.
Guevara said she talked to Scalia’s doctor in Washington, D.C., who told her he had been sick and had been at his office Wednesday and Thursday before going on the hunting trip Friday.
According to Guevara, Scalia told his group Friday at dinner he was not feeling well and went to his room early. He then missed breakfast and lunch Saturday and was found unresponsive in his bed.
Scalia, who was appointed to the high court by former President Ronald Reagan, was the longest-serving justice on the court, having taken his seat on Sept. 26, 1986.
Despite calls from conservatives for his seat to not be filled until a new president was elected, President Obama said Saturday he intends to nominate a replacement before his term ends.
CBS and the Associated Press report today that authorities, including Presidio County Judge Cinderella Guevara, are considering an autopsy for Judge Scalia, although toxicological testing could already be in doubt due to the delay. There is also a report that after arriving at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, the Sunset Funeral Home embalmed Scalia’s remains, according to Chris Lujuan, a funeral home manager. The embalming process could destroy vital toxicology evidence.
Gheen is calling on activists to call members of Congress and Presidio County Judge Guevara to demand an immediate and comprehensive investigation into what he calls “the suspiciously timed death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that includes extensive multi-agency law enforcement forensic autopsies and toxicology reports to put these questions to rest or determine if foul play was involved.”
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Turkey says it will continue to target U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters on the Syrian frontier near its border, despite mounting international pressure on the Ankara government to stop the artillery bombardments. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, in telephone talks Sunday, told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Turkish forces will "not permit" the Kurdish People's Protection Units fighters (YPG), of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) "to carry out aggressive...
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