WASHINGTON — Bidding farewell to their longtime colleague, the eight remaining Supreme Court justices joined family members, former law clerks and members of the public Friday in paying their respects to Antonin Scalia in a tradition-laden, solemn day at the marble courthouse atop Capitol Hill.
The Rev. Paul Scalia, the justice’s son and a Catholic priest, said traditional prayers at a private ceremony before thousands of people filed through the court’s Great Hall, where Scalia’s casket lay on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
“You have called your servant Antonin out of this world. Release him from the bonds of sin, and welcome him into your presence,” the sixth of the justice’s nine children said.
Outside the court, meanwhile, a makeshift memorial was set up featuring jars of apple sauce, a pile of fortune cookies and paper bags, items that figured in the outspoken conservative Scalia’s sharp dissents in recent cases.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited the court Friday afternoon, bowing their heads near Scalia’s casket and pausing in front of a portrait of the justices. During their brief stop at the court, the Obamas were greeted by Chief Justice John Roberts and met with another son of Scalia’s, Army Lt. Col. Matthew Scalia, and his family. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, were to attend Saturday’s funeral Mass.
On Friday, 98 former law clerks to Scalia lined the Supreme Court’s steps as a police honor guard carried the casket into the building beneath the iconic words “Equal Justice Under Law” just after 9:30 a.m. on a cold, overcast morning.
The justices stood near the casket in the same order in which they will sit on a reconfigured bench after Scalia’s death last weekend in Texas. Chief Justice John Roberts was between Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
A 2007 portrait of Scalia by artist Nelson Shanks was displayed nearby. In it, the justice is shown surrounded by images representing important moments and influences in his life, including a framed wedding photograph of his wife, Maureen. The extended Scalia family gathered around the widow inside the court.
Scalia’s clerks also took 30-minute turns standing near the casket in groups of four and planned to do so through the night until his body is taken from the court for his funeral Saturday.
Among those passing through the Great Hall were members of the federal appeals court on which Scalia served before joining the Supreme Court, including two judges mentioned as possible replacements. Judges Sri Srinivasan and Patricia Millett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit paused briefly before Scalia’s casket and portrait.
More than 3,000 people had passed by the casket as of late afternoon, and court officials added an hour to accommodate the long lines that stretched more than three blocks in the early evening.
At one point, the wait topped 3½ hours.
A Mass, open to family and friends, will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
Burial plans have not been released.
