Roberts Touts Unanimity on Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts talks to students and faculty at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla., Monday, Nov. 13, 2006. Roberts said his judicial philosophy remains one of restraint and not activism, noting that strong advocacy of political views belongs in the halls of Congress or at the White House and its agencies. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) (Alan Diaz - AP)

A Connecticut woman picked a frightening and potentially deadly way to strike back at friends and family members who, she felt, had slighted her. Barbara Joan March sent cookies and candy laced with rat poison to Supreme Court justices and top FBI and Pentagon officials.

Neither March's goodies nor her case made it to the Supreme Court, but retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recounted the April 2005 episode recently as part of a discussion about threats against judges. Her comments were reported in the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram.

March, of Bridgeport, Conn., was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison.

The 14 letters were intercepted by mail handlers who noticed the contents of crushed cookies and candy seeping through the envelopes. All mail sent to the court is screened, court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said.

The typewritten notes contained threatening statements about killing the recipients, but also warned that the treats were poisoned, making it unlikely anyone would have been harmed even if the letters had reached their targets, prosecutors told the federal judge who sentenced March.

The letters seemingly were mailed by acquaintances of March, leading prosecutors to conclude that she was motivated by misplaced anger toward the purported senders rather than a desire to harm the intended recipients.

An FBI investigation found that March sent all the letters, including some that she typed at a public library near her home.

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The Supreme Court is hyperconscious of color. If you want the court to take your case, your brief must have a white cover. Opposed? It's orange. Other briefs must be red, blue, green (dark or light, depending on your side) and cream. The government's filings are always gray.

So it is, as well, with the court's calendar. Days scheduled for the justices' conferences are green, court sessions without arguments are blue and argument sessions are red.

But sometimes, the court changes its mind, color coding notwithstanding. Even though the first Wednesday in December is stamped in red on the calendar, the justices have canceled their session for that day because they were short of cases.

It is not easy to cram a constitutional dispute into an open spot on the calendar. The turnaround time to get a case argued is nearly four months from the time justices agree to hear it. The process can be sped up, but the court does that only reluctantly because it places even more pressure on lawyers who are stepping into the legal world's most intimidating environment.

The court has a full slate of cases for its January argument calendar, helped by the legal holiday on Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

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AP Legal Affairs Writer Curt Anderson contributed to this report.