Sandra Day O'Connor: Entire Supreme Court Was Sent Rat Poison Cookies In '05....

[kpete]

November 17, 2006
Justice Recalls Treats Laced With Poison
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 — A discussion of recent threats to judges’ safety, at a bar association conference in suburban Dallas last week, became startlingly specific when Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Supreme Court justice, recounted that each justice had received in the mail “a wonderful package of home-baked cookies” that contained “enough poison to kill the entire membership of the court.”

Justice O’Connor’s remarks were reported on Thursday in The Star-Telegram in Fort Worth.

Although the episode was not publicly disclosed when it occurred in April 2005, it had a public, although little-noticed, denouement last month when the sender of the poisoned cookies was sentenced in federal court here to 15 years in prison.

The sender, Barbara Joan March of Bridgeport, Conn., pleaded guilty to 14 counts of “mailing injurious articles.” The 14 recipients included the nine justices; the chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; and the director and deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The packages, containing either candy or baked goods, were laced with rat poison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/washington/17threat.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=washington&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

[On the Road]

1. Hmmm...Doesn't Mention Motive

Would be very interested.

[xultar]

2. A freeper move no doubt.

[Wickerman]

3. Forbes has more

implies the motive was to get family and friends in hot water by sending the items with their return addys.


http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/feeds/ap/2006/11/17/ap3185813.html
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.