Supreme Court's newest justice has elk as office mate
WASHINGTON (AP) - When Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the Supreme Court earlier this year he got Justice Antonin Scalia's seat, his office and his elk, Leroy.
In recent appearances, Gorsuch has been telling the story of how the elk - actually just its mounted head - came to be his office mate.
The story starts more than a decade ago when Scalia shot the elk on a hunting trip and had its head mounted and hung in his Supreme Court office.
Gorsuch explained at an event in Washington last week that after Scalia died in 2016 it seemed that the elk was destined "to become homeless." That's because the elk head, part of an animal estimated to have weighed around 900 pounds, is "much too much for anyone's living room wall," Gorsuch said.
"And then someone got the idea that Leroy might make, well, a sort of unusual welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift for the new guy. What a gift," Gorsuch said.
Christopher Scalia, one of the late justice's nine children and the co-editor of a collection of his father's speeches published this week, said in a telephone interview that his father shot the Rocky Mountain elk on a hunting trip in Colorado in 2003. Though the justice had other hunting trophies displayed in his home including white tail deer, an antelope or two and a boar's head, the elk was "way too big for our house," Christopher Scalia said. So Leroy took up residence at the Supreme Court facing the justice's desk.
"He was proud of it and he enjoyed showing it off," Christopher Scalia said.
Glen Summers, a former law clerk of Scalia's who was with him when he shot Leroy, said Scalia made a "magnificent, long-range" shot of some 460 yards. It was the only elk Scalia ever killed, he said. As for why the justice called him Leroy, that's a mystery, Summers said.
After Scalia died, Leroy was crated up and sent to Summers in Colorado, he said. And when Gorsuch was nominated to the court, Summers asked what others were also thinking, he said: Would Gorsuch, a fellow conservative and outdoorsman, take Leroy back to Washington? Gorsuch "graciously accepted," Summers said. So back across the country Leroy went. He was presented to Gorsuch at a reunion of Scalia clerks earlier this year.
Gorsuch joked last week that he is actually "delighted to share space with Leroy" and that they "share a few things in common."
"Turns out, we're both native Coloradans. We both received a rather shocking summons to Washington," he said. "Neither of us is ever going to forget Justice Scalia."
What's next after Supreme Court lets juvenile ruling stay
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week not to weigh in on a New Jersey court ruling that helped prompt a law prohibiting mandatory life without parole for juveniles means that the two men who sparked the case will be re-sentenced.
The Supreme Court declined to take up the case involving Ricky Zuber and James Comer, both of whom were convicted of serious crimes as juveniles and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for multiple offenses.
A look at what the court's decision and the ongoing legal arguments over long sentences for juveniles means for New Jersey:
WHO ARE RICKY ZUBER AND JAMES COMER?
Zuber was sentenced for his role in two gang rapes, crimes he committed at the age of 17. He got a 110-year prison sentence and he wouldn't be eligible for parole until 2036.
In the first rape, Zuber and others forced a woman at knife-point to drive to a cemetery in 1981, where they raped her before abandoning her naked. In the second case a month later, Zuber and others abducted and raped a 16-year-old high school student.
Comer was convicted when he was 17 of participating in four armed robberies in 2000, one of which led to the killing of a victim by an accomplice. He was sentenced to 75 years and he wouldn't be eligible for parole until 2068.
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WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM NOW?
Neither judge was required to evaluate the fact that the violence was committed when the men were juveniles, but that changed with a 2014 Supreme Court case.
Considering that ruling in a case in Alabama that found that mandatory sentences of life without possibility of parole was unconstitutional for juvenile offenders, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled in January that both men deserved to be re-sentenced. The state asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider that unanimous decision, but the high court declined this week.
Both men will now have a chance to be re-sentenced by New Jersey judges considering the "mitigating effects of youth."
"He will have an opportunity to show that the person he was when he was 17 is a lot different than the man he is 17 years later," Alexander Shalom said this week of Comer, who the ACLU represents.
Zuber is represented by a public defender, whose office's policy is not to comment on cases.
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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OTHER JUVENILE OFFENDERS IN NEW JERSEY?
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruling asked lawmakers to pass legislation prohibiting mandatory life without parole for juveniles in the state, and state lawmakers followed through on that last year.
The legislation means that juveniles convicted of murder in New Jersey now face a minimum of 30 years up to a life sentence, but even those who receive the maximum would be eligible for parole after serving 30 years.
The state Supreme Court case also directed judges to "exercise a heightened level of care" before imposing consecutive sentences on juveniles that could lead to a lengthy period without being able to get parole. Judges were also instructed to do an "individualized assessment" of juveniles before sentencing.
There could be further changes to New Jersey's laws. A bill introduced in March would reduce the maximum period of parole ineligibility for juveniles who are sentenced as adults to 20 years. It also would allow them to petition for resentencing after 10 years. Lawmakers have yet to hold hearings on the bill.
Published: Tue, Oct 10, 2017
