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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at forum in Washington in 2011.(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP)
WASHINGTON —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's legacy as one of the court's most formidable members was built on more than a quarter-century of colorful service. But his regard for personal security entourages that shadow many of the government's highest-ranking officials may be summed up in one telephone call nearly 16 years ago.
Sylvester Jones, the former director of Judicial Security operations for the U.S. Marshals Service,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said Scalia was on the line with top officials from the service. The justice was in need of help, though it had nothing to do with his personal<span style="color: Red;">*</span>safety.
Anticipating an important decision from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Scalia asked that a copy of the decision be hand-delivered to his<span style="color: Red;">*</span>retreat on North Carolina's Outer Banks<span style="color: Red;">*</span>from the courthouse in Atlanta. His whereabouts, Jones said, were a revelation to the Marshals Service since the agency is tasked with the security of Supreme Court justices when they venture outside of the capital.
“We had no idea where he was at the time or what he was doing,’’ Jones said. Nevertheless, the marshals security apparatus quickly kicked into gear, if only<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to oblige the justice’s request. “An inspector was called in Atlanta with orders to get the decision to Scalia, forthwith,’’ Jones said. “I don’t know how he got it there exactly— either by plane or by car — but it got delivered.’’
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The incident highlights<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the broad discretion that Supreme Court justices exert<span style="color: Red;">*</span>over their personal security in a city where heavily fortified motorcades are a routine part of the government landscape. For years, the Marshals Service has coordinated the security for justices on their travels outside of the capital, though Scalia was one who often preferred to go it alone on vacation or personal business.
“Justice Scalia liked his privacy,’’ Jones said.
It was not necessarily unusual, then, that the justice traveled last week without a security detail<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to the isolated Cibolo Creek Ranch Resort in West Texas where he was found last Saturday dead of natural causes in his room.
The Marshals Service, whose protection responsibilities range from judges and prosecutors to the inhabitants of the secret Witness Protection Program, declined to comment, except to confirm that a "USMS detail was declined'' for the trip and that no federal security officials<span style="color: Red;">*</span>were present at the ranch until after ranch officials summoned for help.
In Scalia's case, no security detail would have likely made a difference, but Jones said a security contingent may have provided some immediate clarity about the circumstances of his death that, in short order, spun into bizarre conspiracy theories advanced on Twitter and other social media.
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Much of the strange debate was prompted by disclosures that it took hours to locate a local peace justice to make a<span style="color: Red;">*</span><span style="color: Red;">*</span>pronouncement<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that the justice's passing was due to natural causes. The online<span style="color: Red;">*</span>discussion only accelerated when it was revealed that the death pronouncement was done by phone —unusual but not totally uncommon in remote areas of Texas.
The episode, however, did not appear<span style="color: Red;">*</span>likely to prompt any urgent change in the measured security strategy that seems to befit the exclusive group of justices, many of whom often go unrecognized in public.
"I would venture to say that if you showed photos of some of the justices to people, maybe one in 500 could tell you who they are,'' said Arnette Heintze, a former Secret Service agent who worked on the protective details for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "Absent specific threats, I don't think there is a need for 24-hour protection. I think what they have now is reasonably prudent and scaled to them.''
Joseph<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Guccione, a retired marshal who was long assigned to coordinate security for Scalia, declined to comment on the former justice's security preferences.
"I'll say this,'' Guccione said, "he was a giant. He was like a father to me. People can't talk about Justice Scalia without talking about his great intellect. But at the end of the day, he was just like anybody else, a great person.''
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