(LifeSiteNews) — Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said that the increasing frequency of threats to himself and fellow justices has impacted the number of public appearances he can make, amid an ongoing trend of intense partisan hatred for the institution.
“The security concerns now are much different from the way they were when I first became a circuit justice,” Thomas said at a recent conference in Florida, the Washington Examiner reports. “That’s really one of the big changes since I’ve been on the court – that it’s become very, very dicey.”
In February, the second-longest-serving justice in American history addressed an American University law school conference remotely rather than in-person as originally intended, due to a potential threat.
“I apologize for having to change things, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t endanger anyone by my mere presence,” Thomas said at the time. “At the same time, I encourage you not to follow the example of the things that have happened that prevent us from being together.”
“I think it says so much about where we are,” he added. “That we are sitting here, and the people we are speaking to are sitting there, when in a civil society, we would all be sitting in the same room, at the same table, even as we disagree.”
When a leaked draft indicated the nation’s highest court would be overturning Roe v. Wade a month before it happened in June 2022, a pro-abortion group calling itself Ruth Sent Us organized “walk-by protests” at the “homes of the six extremist justices” and published a map containing those homes. The protests, which included chants like “no uterus, no opinion” (despite Barrett being female), violated federal law against “picketing or parading” with the “intent of influencing any judge” in or near “a building or residence occupied or used by such judge.”
The Biden administration refused to condemn the choice of private homes as protest sites, and then-Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went so far as to praise the “righteous anger” of the protesters.
The leak and subsequent ruling were also followed by numerous acts of violence, vandalism, and intimidation against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers and, most alarmingly, California man Nicholas John Roske taking a gun and ammunition to the home of Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, with intent to kill.
In 2024, Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett relayed how overall her family adjusted “beautifully” to her current role but that she found its security demands challenging, such as having to regularly travel with U.S. marshals. In particular, she recalled an anecdote in which her 13-year-old son came across the discarded bulletproof vest she had worn home and how his initial innocent reaction of “that’s so cool! Can I try it on?” soon gave way to concern as to why his mother had it in the first place. Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all voted to overturn Roe.