Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lie in repose at Supreme Court

Body of late justice will also lie in state at US Capitol

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lie in repose at the US Supreme Court building on Wednesday and Thursday following her death on 18 September after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer.

Justice Ginsburg’s body will also lie in state in National Statuary Hall at the US Capitol on Friday.

A private ceremony for family, close friends and members of the court will be held on Wednesday at 9.30am inside the Great Hall, the nation's high court announced. Following the service, she will lie in repose at the top of the steps of the building at the Portico.

Her former law clerks will serve as honorary pallbearers along the sides of the steps.

Justices will remain inside the Great Hall as Justice Ginburg’s casket arrives on the Lincoln Catafalque, on loan from Congress.

The platform was constructed in 1865 to support Abraham Lincoln’s casket while his body lay in state in the US Capitol Rotunda. It has also been used for services for late justices Antontin Scalia and William Rehnquist, among others.

Justice Ginsburg’s portrait by Constance P Beaty will also be on display inside the Great Hall.

Members of the public will be allowed to gather in front of the Supreme Court building beginning at 11am on Wednesday until 10pm on Thursday.

Friday’s ceremony at the Capitol is only open to invited guests.

A private interment at Arlington National Cemetery is scheduled for next week.

Black drapes are hanging above the court doors to mark the court’s mourning, a tradition in place since 1873.

Justice Ginsburg took her judicial oath as an associate justice at the Supreme Court in 1993, following her nomination to the court by then-president Bill Clinton. She was the second woman, after Sandra Day O’Connor, and among only four women to serve as a justice on the high court.

She was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and survived several bouts with cancer over the decades that followed. She began receiving another round of cancer treatments in May 2020. She died on Friday at age 87.

Thousands of mourners have held vigils outside the Supreme Court building over the last several days in the wake of her death.