Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224 (1991)

JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring in the judgment.

In my view, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion purported to apply the standard for summary judgment that today’s opinion demands. Its error was in finding, on the facts before it, that the standard was not met. Since I think it worthwhile to establish that this Court will not let such a mistake stand with respect to those who guard the life of the President, I concur in the summary reversal.

1. In the original, "(NCC)" is written above the word "Image," and the connecting arrow runs downward. Defendants’ Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment in No. CV 86-3134 (CD Cal.), p. 61. The arrow is omitted in the copy of the letter reprinted in the Court of Appeals’ opinion.

2. The National Council of Churches has at times come under attack for allegedly supporting subversive activity. In 1983, for example, such charges were leveled against the National Council of Churches in a segment of the television program "60 Minutes" and in an article appearing in the Reader’s Digest, Isaac, Do You Know Where Your Church Offerings Go?, Reader’s Digest, January 1983, pp. 121-25. The president of the National Council of Churches responded to media reports by stating

"[T]he National Council of Churches is not a worldwide socialist conspiracy. . . . [It] does not supply arms to communists, revolutionaries, or anyone else. The National Council of Churches does not believe in the violent overthrow of any government."

Christian Science Monitor, May 5, 1983, p. 3 (reporting speech of Bishop James Armstrong, president of the National Council of Churches). For reports of criticism of the National Council of Churches closer in time to the incident at issue here, see, e.g., Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1985, part 2, p. 5, col. 1 (reporting statement by Peter Reddaway of London School of Economics that "`[w]ittingly or unwittingly, the NCC is deeply involved in concealing and distorting the truth about the Soviet Union . . .’"); id. April 25, 1985, part 5, p. 1, col. 2 (reporting statement by associate professor of history at Seattle Pacific University that the National Council of Churches "has done a disservice to Christians in the Soviet Union by `buying the Soviet line’ as handed to them by official Soviet church leaders . . .").