It really doesn’t matter if it was a supreme or not. The Justice of the Peace basically rules, “they’re dead” legally. They don’t have to go stare at the body. They don’t investigate it and break out their junior CSI kit.
No sense in someone driving a few hundred miles to do that. There are paramedics and a deputy there at the scene. The drama will never end from those who think this is a suburb of DC, but this is normal.
I guess for a supreme the could have waited for 3 or 4 hours for a JP to arrive and say “he’s really REALLY dead”.
Well maybe you are comfortable with someone declaring an important Supreme Court Justice dead over the phone, but I’m not. There should have been an autopsy. One of the Justices said that if she had been told the situation, she would have ordered an autopsy.
Judge Guevara said she was shopping in the neighboring town of Alpine on Saturday afternoon when Presidio County Sheriff Danny Dominguez called her on her mobile phone after lunch. Guevara officially pronounced him dead at 1:52 p.m. on Saturday. http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/texas-news/scalia-to-have-autopsy-in-texas-according-to-state-law/42898331
The body was found in the morning after Scalia did not show up for breakfast. http://www.ksat.com/news/supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-79-dies
The body arrived at El Paso at 2:30 AM. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/body-of-supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-arrives-in-el-paso-awaits-flight-to-dc/ar-BBpufxo after a three hour trip http://woodtv.com/2016/02/14/scalias-body-at-funeral-home-after-3-hour-procession/ Which indicates a departure time of 11:30 PM
So let’s say breakfast was at 8:30 AM. By perhaps 10:00 people went to find him (I have not seen any report listing the time of discovery).
That’s nearly 12 hours between discovery and transport.
During those 12 hours the County Judge did not see the body and, without an autopsy to determine the cause of death of the found body, literally phones it in that the cause of death is “natural”.
It’s aprx 64 miles from Alpine to Cibolo Creek Ranch, all but the last aprx 4.5 miles of which is via US highway. Even allowing for 2 hours to travel from Alpine to Cibolo Creek Ranch the judge could not find time in 10 hours to actually view the body? Really? A Justice of the Supreme Court is found dead and she can’t be bothered?