While I’m not particularly fond of symbolism for its own sake, the announcement that the Supreme Court of the United States will no longer permit people to enter through its front doors came as shock.  Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog  writes:

Some sad news to report on the Supreme Court front: At least for the indefinite future, no longer will the public be allowed to enter the Supreme Court building through the front doors. No, for security reasons, all visitors will now be shepherded through two side doors on the ground level.

Ashby’s primarily concerned with the loss of the inspirational aspect of this change.

It’s too bad: entering the Supreme Court through those doors is inspiring and cool experience — probably best done just after graduating from law school, when you’re still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and rarin’ to try your hand at real-life legal practice.

Certainly, the loss of a significant purpose to the creation of a structure representing the “majesty of the law,” the physical manifestation of the ideals upon which our system is founded, is disturbing.  So too is the symbolism that redress of grievances in America comes in through the side door.

Yet this goes beyond mere symbolism.  The closure of the front door as an entrance into a branch of government reflects two more substantive, and far more disturbing, things than the loss of coolness and inspiration.  First, it says that we concede that the United States of America is incapable of defending a single door from breach or attack.  Second, it says that the fear of this inability is of paramount importance.  To put it another way, safety first.

There is no denying, as targets of political disagreement go, that the Supreme Court is a big one.  While fear of terrorism falls far distant to fear of bad drivers as far as harm to others go, it would be a failure of massive symbolic importance should someone manage to get inside the sanctum sanctorum with a bomb under their coat.  Are we not capable of discerning such a threat through the front door?  Perhaps not, but if that’s the case, then for all the cost and inconvenience that safety imposes on us, why are we bothering?  If we can’t protect the Supreme Court from attack, let’s send the tin soldiers packing and make our lives enormously more convenient by trashing the whole scheme.

The second concern, however, goes far deeper into the troubled core of our society.  Justice Stephen Breyer, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg concurring, issued a “dissent” from the decision to close the front door entry. 

To my knowledge, and I have spoken to numerous jurists and architects worldwide, no other Supreme Court in the world—including those, such as Israel’s, that face security concerns equal to or greater than ours—has closed its main entrance to the public. And the main entrances to numerous other prominent public buildings in America remain open. I thus remain hopeful that, sometime in the future, technological advances, a Congressional appropriation, or the dissipation of the current security risks will enable us to restore the Supreme Court’s main entrance as a symbol of dignified openness and meaningful access to equal justice under law.

The tension between law and order, safety and freedom, is at the core of essentially every criminal law case that has and will come before the Court.  It has now spoken for itself, that safety comes before freedom.  That order is more important than law.  This is the ultimate capitulation to fear.

The Supreme Court has ruled.  We have lost.