SCOTUS NEWS
on Sep 19, 2024
at 12:38 pm
The indictment did not indicate which six of the justices were threatened. (PT Hamilton via Shutterstock)
An Alaska man was arrested on Wednesday after he was indicted on charges of threatening to kill and injure six Supreme Court justices and two of their family members, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday.
Over a 16-month period between March 2023 and July 2024, Panos Anastasiou allegedly sent more than 465 messages through the Supreme Court’s website. Beginning in early January of this year, he began to send threatening messages to the justices and their family members, who are not identified in the 11-page indictment (h/t Jacqueline Thomson of Bloomberg Law) by name.
Those messages, according to the indictment, contained “violent, racist, and homophobic rhetoric coupled with threats of assassination via torture, hanging and firearms, and encouraged others to participate in the acts of violence.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland denounced the threats. “Our justice system,” Garland said, “depends on the ability of judges to make their decisions based on the law, and not on fear. Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families.”
In the wake of the May 2022 leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Garland announced that he had increased security at the justices’ homes. In June 2022, a California man was charged with attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice after he was arrested near the Maryland home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. A trial in that case is scheduled to begin in June 2025.
This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.
