9 Justices Pursue Anonymity in City Dedicated to Exposure

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had just been sworn in as the newest U.S. Supreme Court justice a few years ago when a young couple stopped him on the courthouse steps and asked him to take time out for a photograph.

It was not for a photo of him. Instead, they wanted this pleasant stranger to take a snapshot of them. Kennedy dutifully complied, and the smiling couple left without a clue that the man who had snapped their picture was a Supreme Court justice.

Kennedy’s experience is not unique among his colleagues. Though the nine justices possess the awesome power to determine the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, their faces--and often their names--are largely unknown.

In the nation’s capital, the justices remain a great exception. While politicians and high government executives scramble for exposure on television, the members of the high court shun the spotlight and pursue anonymity.

Over the past decade, TV cameras have become a regular presence in the Capitol and the White House. As television has become the medium of political power, many have asked: When will the third branch of government go “live” on TV?

In recent years, attorneys for the TV networks have urged the high court to open its doors to cameras. The public’s understanding of the law would be enhanced, they say, if viewers could watch the oral arguments and the announcement of the decisions.

Moreover, the First Amendment demands that the government carry on its business in public, these critics contend.

But the justices have demurred. Without offering a public explanation, the court has ignored the pleas and kept its doors closed to cameras and even tape recorders.

In private, several of the justices have said they do not share the common view that TV exposure is a measure of power.

Rather, they believe their authority is enhanced in part because they are aloof and remote. Their decisions carry more weight because they are seen as the work of nine magisterial figures dressed in black robes, not a group of smiling politicians. Don’t expect to see a Supreme Court justice on a Sunday morning talk show explaining a court decision, they say.

Certainly, the justices have succeeded in remaining largely unknown. “All nine of them could walk down practically any street in the country and go unrecognized,” says one court clerk.

Indeed, the justices can walk across the marble plaza of the court entirely unnoticed by the hundreds of tourists lined up to enter the Supreme Court building.

With his white hair, thick glasses and bright bow ties, the 71-year-old John Paul Stevens looks like a justice of the high court. But not evidently to tourists. Stevens says that when he walks down the court’s imposing steps, tourists often wave for him to step aside so as not to ruin their photos of the columns.

The tiny, soft-spoken Harry A. Blackmun is a vilified figure in anti-abortion circles. In 1973, he wrote the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling giving women a constitutional right to abortion. But last year, as abortion foes marched in front of the court, Blackmun stood watching in his tan cardigan sweater, unnoticed by the demonstrators.

In the fall of 1937, then 20-year-old Byron R. (Whizzer) White was a household word--the name of the nation’s best college football player. Now, after nearly three decades of service on the Supreme Court, only 3% could identify him in a national poll.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the only woman on the high court, is the best known of the nine. She was identified by 23% in the national survey. In the court cafeteria or around the building, she alone among the justices is stopped and asked for an autograph.

More than two-thirds of those surveyed in the Washington Post poll could not name any of the justices. The survey found 54% could name the judge on the “People’s Court” TV show, Joseph Wapner. However, only 9% could name the chief justice of the United States, William H. Rehnquist.

Putting the names and faces together is something else.

Last July, during the Supreme Court’s summer recess, Justice Antonin Scalia piled his wife and three youngest children into a van to drive cross-country because the 55-year-old justice was scheduled to teach at the Pepperdine Law School in Malibu.

One evening in Nebraska, a hot and tired Scalia waited for a motel clerk to complete his check-in. When she finished, she handed back his credit card.

“Thank you, Mr. SKALyuh,” she said. “It’s skaLEEuh,” he corrected her. “Oh,” she said, brightening--”like the Supreme Court justice.”

“Yes,” concurred the smiling--and still unrecognized--Mr. Justice Scalia.

Rehnquist, who has long been plagued by back troubles, is unable to sit for extended periods. He likes to walk the streets of Capitol Hill with a law clerk, talking about the cases as they stroll. Even in this politically conscious neighborhood, rarely does anyone notice him.

A clerk who has spent hours walking with Rehnquist recalls only one time when they were stopped on the street.

“A car pulled up to us at the curb and rolled down the window,” he said. As the chief justice of the United States leaned over, the driver asked, “Can you tell me how to get to the Dirksen Building?”

Once each year, the court invites a contingent of photographers to come by to take a formal photo of the nine justices. There, Rehnquist once observed, the justices often look like “nine black-robed figures whose heads are interchangeable.”

Last fall, the photographers just missed a rare moment. Before their cameras were in place, two fingers emerged from one black robe and formed a pair of rabbit ears above the solemn countenance of White. Standing behind him with only the faintest of smiles was O’Connor.

For the weeks that separate a justice’s nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate, an aspiring Supreme Court justice stands in the glare of the public eye. Last July, within the space of a few hours, David H. Souter went from being an obscure judge living alone in rural New Hampshire to a national figure whose face was displayed on television, in newspapers and on the cover of newsmagazines.

After moving to Washington, Souter was bemused for a time at being recognized in stores and on the streets. But, to his relief, within a few months anonymity returned.

Souter likes to tell of returning to Concord, N.H., on a weekend and stopping at the local market. In the parking lot, an elderly man looked squarely at him.

“You look like that lawyer,” the old man said.

“That’s because I am,” Souter replied.

The old man looked at him again and a doubt came over him.

“The hell you are,” he said.

Public Power, Private Lives

Here are the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court:

William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice

Thurgood Marshall

David H. Souter

Harry A. Blackmun

Sandra Day O’Connor

John Paul Stevens

Anthony M. Kennedy

Antonin Scalia

Byron R. White