Justice Scalia appeared to be in good health prior to his vacation at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas owned by Texas millionaire businessman and Democrat donor John Poindexter. Many believe the timing of his death is too coincidental. After reading the details provided and sourced below, share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

It has been long-standing policy for the Obama administration to grant presidential awards to those who are among the president’s most prized political donors.

It was Poindexter who reportedly was among those who initially discovered the Justice’s body, and who then coordinated with local officials to have Justice Scalia declared dead via a phone conversation with the area medical examiner – but without an actual medical examination of the body.

Mr. Poindexter was also said to be the primary point man between the ranch location and federal authorities who were notably slow to arrive on scene.

If Elizabeth Price Foley at Instapundit is correct,  Barack Obama could indeed make a recess appointment to replace Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court thanks to a Recess Appointments Clause.

Under S. Con. Res. 31, the only way to recall the Senate back into business before February 22 is with the “concurrence [of] the Minority Leader of the Senate,” Harry Reid (D-NV). Somehow I doubt Sen. Reid will grant such concurrence to reconvene, should President Obama decide to use this 10-day recess to make a recess appointment and replace Justice Scalia. But should President Obama try use this particular 10-day recess to replace Justice Scalia, the replacement would only be constitutionally permitted to serve until the end of the next session– i.e., until the end of the 1st session of the 115th Congress, which would be sometime in early January 2018. Via: Instapundit

So, in other words…the timing of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia couldn’t have been better…

In the cloistered chambers of the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia’s days were highly regulated and predictable. He met with clerks, wrote opinions and appeared for arguments in the august courtroom on a schedule set months in advance.

Yet as details of Scalia’s sudden death trickled in Sunday, it appeared that the hours afterward were anything but orderly. The man known for his elegant legal opinions and profound intellect was found dead in his room at a hunting resort by the resort’s owner, who grew worried when Scalia didn’t appear at breakfast Saturday morning.

It then took hours for authorities in remote West Texas to find a justice of the peace, officials said Sunday. When they did, Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara pronounced Scalia dead of natural causes without seeing the body — which is permissible under Texas law — and without ordering an autopsy.

As official Washington tried to process what his demise means for politics and the law, some details of Scalia’s final hours remained opaque. As late as Sunday afternoon, for example, there were conflicting reports about whether an autopsy should have been performed. A manager at the El Paso funeral home where Scalia’s body was taken said that his family made it clear they did not want one.

One of two other officials who were called but couldn’t get to Scalia’s body in time said that she would have made a different decision on the autopsy.

“If it had been me . . . I would want to know,” Juanita Bishop, a justice of the peace in Presidio, Tex., said in an interview Sunday of the chaotic hours after Scalia’s death at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a luxury compound less than an hour from the Mexican border and about 40 miles south of Marfa.

Meanwhile, Guevara acknowledged that she pronounced Scalia dead by phone, without seeing his body. Instead, she spoke to law enforcement officials at the scene — who assured her “there were no signs of foul play” — and Scalia’s physician in Washington, who said that the 79-year-old justice suffered from a host of chronic conditions.

“He was having health issues,’’ Guevara said, adding that she is awaiting a statement from Scalia’s doctor that will be added to his death certificate when it is issued later this week.

Guevara also rebutted a report by a Dallas TV station that quoted her as saying that Scalia had died of “myocardial infarction.” In an interview with The Washington Post, she said she meant only that his heart had stopped.

“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Guevara said. “He died of natural causes.” Via: Washington Post

3 Possible ways Justice Scalia may have died:

The absence of an autopsy will stoke the fires of conspiracy, but they may be doused later this week when a statement from Scalia’s doctor will be added to his death certificate. The 79-year-old jurist suffered from several chronic conditions, The Washington Post reported.

Scalia was not a young man. He was 79 years old and friends at the West Texas ranch where he died say he went to bed early because he didn’t feel well. There are many natural causes of death that could be responsible. A heart attack seems to be the most probable cause, and local media are reporting that his death certificate will read “myocardial infarction.” Other media reports say the cause will be deemed natural. Either way, no official is suggesting homicide.

Let’s not let that stop us from conjecture. Besides, there are also a few man-made ways to kill him that would fit the very thin facts — some of which would be hard to prove even if examiners conducted an autopsy.

1) Smothered

Many conspiracy-minded people are pointing to a small detail to throw some suspicion over Scalia’s death: a pillow found over his head. So could someone have entered his room and used that pillow to asphyxiate him? This method only really works with really old or young people, or those already unconscious. There are usually telltale signs of these murders — not only will most victims struggle, leaving signs of the fight behind, but the suffocation takes up to 5 minutes and the body shows this with hemorrhages under the skin. But there’s a catch: Sometimes the suffocation triggers a heart attack, leaving the corpse without many of the signs of a homicide.

Even a close examination can miss this cause of death. “Homicidal smothering is extremely difficult to detect,” reads one book on forensic pathology written by Dinesh Rao. “The autopsy may reveal asphyxia, but there may not be any corroborative medical evidence to prove foul play.”

2) Poisoned

Assassination by poison is an ancient art form. It’s also a good way to kill people without getting caught. Let’s say you’re the professional killer hired by — oh, let’s just go the whole way and blame this on the White House. They might ask how you plan on doing this.

“Well,” the killer would respond, “I’m a trained nurse and I’m a big fan of this muscle relaxant called succinylcholine. It’s the stuff we inject into patients when we want to jam breathing tubes down their throats while they’re still awake. But get this: In high enough doses, it paralyses people so they can’t breath. Most autopsies show this as a heart attack. It’s brilliant.” The White House aide smiles. “Then let’s take out that SOB.”

Sound far-fetched? Well, sure. But a similar scheme killed Nevada State Controller Kathy Augustine when her husband injected her with succinylcholine. The hubby was nabbed when coworkers reported that he was pondering ways to kill her, and looked more closely at her body. They found a small needle mark.

The drug doesn’t leave any direct traces, but it breaks down and leave metabolites behind that can indicate a poisoning. But the medical examiner has to be looking for those signs to catch them during an autopsy.

3) Gassed

The paranoid can also ponder whether Scalia could have been killed with a gas. One easy choice would be to use carbon monoxide poisoning, undetectable by smell or color. There have been cases where a murderer has run a hose from the tailpipe of a car into a room where the victim is sleeping. (A doctor in Ohio named Mark Wangler did this in 2006 and got caught, mostly because his claim that the victim had a seizure was proven false. Prosecutors showed that she was dead when the call was made.) All a hired killer would need is a commercially available canister of carbon monoxide and a hose.

There’s a catch, though. There are usually telltale signs when a person is killed by CO. There may be froth at the mouth and nose. (The kind of evidence absorbed by a pillow perhaps?) The skin and internal organs can become bright red, almost like a stain. It’s unlikely that such clues would be ignored by an M.E.

Since Scalia’s family has declined an autopsy, America will likely never know the truth…

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Death Threat she and Justice O’Connor received:

In 2006, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg  acknowledged a specific death threat against her and her retired colleague Sandra Day O’Connor, blaming lawmakers for fueling “the irrational fringe.”

 

She said the court’s marshal, Pamela Talkin, alerted her and O’Connor to a February 28, 2005, Internet chat posting by an unidentified person to his fellow “commandoes” urging a “patriotic assignment.”

According to Ginsburg, the Web author criticized the justices’ prior reference of international laws, saying, “This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom. … If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week.”

The threat came amid growing concern in the judicial community over the personal safety of judges and court personnel. A federal judge’s husband was murdered in Illinois in 2005, by an angry litigant. Less than two weeks later, a shooting spree in Georgia left a judge, a court reporter and a deputy dead in a county courtroom.

Deadly anthrax spores were mailed to the Supreme Court’s building in 2001, prompting the building to be evacuated for several weeks.