Scalia said to have died of a heart attack

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MARFA, Tex. — Inside the cloistered chambers of the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia’s days were highly regulated and predictable. He met with clerks, wrote opinions and appeared for arguments in the august courtroom on a schedule set months in advance.

Yet as details of his sudden death trickled in Sunday, it appeared that the hours afterward were anything but orderly. The man known for his elegant legal opinions and profound intellect was found dead in his room at a hunting resort, either by a housekeeper or the ranch owner, according to conflicting accounts.

It then took hours for authorities in remote West Texas to find a justice of the peace, officials said Sunday. When they did, she pronounced Scalia dead of natural causes without seeing the body and decided not to order an autopsy. A second justice of the peace, who was called but couldn’t get to Scalia’s body in time, said she would have ordered an autopsy.

“If it had been me . . . I would want to know,” Juanita Bishop, a justice of the peace in Presidio, Tex., told The Washington Post in an interview Sunday about the chaotic hours after Scalia’s death at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a luxury compound less than an hour from the Mexican border and about 40 miles south of Marfa.

The U.S. Marshals Service has not issued a statement about the events surrounding Scalia’s death Saturday. And as official Washington tried to process what the justice’s death means for politics and the law, some details of his final hours remained opaque.

As late as Sunday afternoon, there were conflicting reports about whether an autopsy would be performed, though officials later said Scalia’s body was being embalmed and there would be no autopsy. One report, by WFAA-TV in Dallas, said the death certificate would show the cause of the death was a heart attack.

One thing was clear: Scalia had died in his element, doing what he loved at the ranch that has played host to movie stars and European royalty and is famous for bird hunts and bigger game, such as bison and mountain lions.

“Other than being with his family or in church, there’s no place he’d rather be than on a hunt,” said Houston lawyer Mark Lanier, who accompanied Scalia on hunting trips seeking wild boar, deer and even alligators. Lanier said he first learned of Scalia’s love for hunting through former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “He’ll do anything if you take him hunting,” Lanier recalled O’Connor saying.

Although it is uncertain whether Scalia went hunting on this particular trip to Cibolo Creek, law enforcement officials said he arrived Friday and attended a party that night with about 40 people. Scalia left the festivities early to go to bed, said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not an authorized representative. It was unclear whether Scalia was not feeling well at the time.

Scalia did not appear for breakfast with others from the party, officials said; people at first thought he might be sleeping in, but they eventually grew concerned. A housekeeper found the body, according to Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara; other witnesses said the housekeeper opened Scalia’s door at the request of the ranch owner.

After emergency personnel and officials from the U.S. Marshals Service were called to the scene, two local judges who also serve as justices of the peace were called, Guevara said in an interview Sunday. Both were out of town, she said — not unusual in a remote region where municipalities are spread far apart.

Guevara also was out of town, but she said she declared Scalia dead based on information provided by officials at the scene, citing Texas laws that allow a justice of the peace to declare someone dead without seeing the body.

Guevara declined to comment further to The Post, but told WFAA that Scalia’s death certificate would list myocardial infarction — a heart attack — as the official cause of death.

She told the station that she planned to drive to the ranch but changed her mind when a U.S. marshal told her by phone: “It’s not necessary for you to come, judge. If you’re asking for an autopsy, that’s what we need to clarify.”

Guevara said she asked the Marshals whether there were “any signs of foul play. And they said, ‘Absolutely not,’ ” she told the station. After talking with Scalia’s personal physician, she said, she pronounced him dead and declined to order an inquest.

Scalia’s body was taken to Sunset Funeral Home in El Paso by a procession of about 20 law enforcement officers. It arrived there about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, according to Chris Lujan, a manager for the funeral home. The funeral home is about 31/2 hours from the ranch where Scalia died.

Lujan said that Scalia’s family did not request an autopsy and that the body is being prepared for the funeral and will be transported back to Washington on Monday. It is under guard by six law enforcement officials, including U.S. marshals and Texas state troopers, Lujan said.

“An autopsy was declined at about 3:30 a.m.,” Lujan said. “The justice of the peace said there was no indication of foul play and that he died in his sleep from natural causes.”

Funeral arrangements for Scalia were unclear Sunday.

Straub and Moravec, in Marfa, Tex., are freelance writers. Horwitz and Markon reported from Washington. Alice Crites in Washington contributed to his report.

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