Mourners to pay respects Friday to late Justice Scalia

“He’s been a wonderful jurist for 30 years, and he’s a patriot, so that’s why I’m here”, said Mary Jo Bieberich, who made a 62-mile round-trip from Annapolis, Maryland. Scalia was also close with Justice Clarence Thomas, who shares his belief that the Constitution’s should be interpreted as it was understood by those who drafted it. Scalia taught Kagan, a self described city girl, how to hunt.

“In your wisdom you have called your servant Antonin out of this world”, intoned Scalia, a Roman Catholic priest from Arlington, Virginia. Many waited outside for almost an hour before they could enter the court’s Great Hall and circle briefly around Scalia’s flag-draped casket.

Scalia died over the weekend at age 79.

The Senate, whose Republican majority would be unlikely to embrace any selection seen as particularly liberal, must confirm nominees picked for lifetime appointments to the nation’s highest court.

The service, which began on an overcast day, concluded with the funeral processing headed to a private burial amid sunlight breaking through a grey sky. “The ceremony at the Supreme Court seems the most apt opportunity for the president to pay his respects, but he obviously might have severe competing demands on his time”. And if the hardline prevents Obama from altering the ideological balance on the court, Republicans believe that’s an even better outcome for their party.

The death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia last week sparked an intense debate between Republicans and Democrats over whether Obama, a Democrat, should nominate Scalia’s replacement before he leaves office, or whether the seat should be left open until a new president takes office in January.

The procession then passed before the court’s eight current justices and the casket was placed on the Lincoln Catafalque. The extended Scalia family gathered around the widow inside the court.

People file past the casket of Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court Building, where he will lie in repose until his funeral at Washington’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Saturday.

President Obama is eager to nominate a Supreme Court justice who can attract Republican support in the Senate, Vice President Biden said Thursday.

The group is naming its campaign “Let the People Decide”, arguing that people should base their votes for president in November, in part, on who the candidates would name to replace Scalia.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Obama would draw on Biden’s perspective, noting the vice president had served as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and presided over confirmation hearings for past Supreme Court nominees.

Three popes have visited the basilica: Pope John Paul II in 1979, Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 and Pope Francis a year ago.