Courts

John Roberts Was Cold As Ice After Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Death

John Roberts wasted no time after RBG died.

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

(Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Normally, when a Supreme Court justice dies, their staff is given plenty of time to clean out their office and ready it for the next justice to hold that seat. Indeed, in the past when a new justice is sworn in before the late justice’s office can be fully cleaned, the new justice takes a temporary office until their permanent digs are ready.

But that’s not what happened when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. As detailed in an excerpt from CNN Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic’s new book, Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences, Chief Justice Roberts wasted no time making room for RBG’s replacement:

Within days of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memorial service in late September 2020, boxes of her files and other office possessions were moved down to a dark, windowless theater on the Supreme Court’s ground floor, where – before the ongoing pandemic – tourists could watch a film about court operations.

Grieving aides to the justice who’d served 27 years and become a cultural icon known as the “Notorious RBG” sorted through the chambers’ contents there.

The abrupt mandate from Chief Justice John Roberts’ administrative team to clear out Ginsburg’s office and make way for the next justice broke from the common practice of allowing staff sufficient time to move and providing a new justice with temporary quarters if needed while permanent chambers were readied.

It was late September when RBG’s stuff got evicted — that’s weeks before Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination was confirmed on October 26th. And that was noted for being a remarkably fast confirmation process! Perhaps there was an unspoken need to rid the Court of RBG’s possessions before the conservative majority took up the process of dismantling her legal legacy.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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