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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia dies of heart attack: judge

Xinhua, February 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

A U.S. judge said on Sunday that U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died of a heart attack and no autopsy was necessary.

The death certificate for Justice Scalia will say the cause of death was natural, and that he died of a heart attack, said Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara, who pronounced the death of Scalia, who was found dead on Saturday in a resort in the U.S. state of Texas, according to local TV station ABC13.

Scalia, 79, arrived on Friday at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa, and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast on Saturday, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found he was already dead.

Guevara said she talked to Scalia's doctor in Washington, D.C., who told her that Scalia had been sick and had been at his office on Wednesday and Thursday before going on the hunting trip in west Texas on Friday. Scalia told his group on Friday at dinner that he was not feeling well and went to his room early. He then missed breakfast and lunch on Saturday and was found unresponsive in his bed.

The body of the late Justice Scalia arrived early Sunday at a funeral home in El Paso, a city in the far west Texas.

Chris Lujan of the Sunset Funeral Homes said if an autopsy is requested by Scalia's family or ordered by a justice of the peace, then an El Paso County medical examiner would likely perform it at the funeral home, but judge Guevara said no autopsy was necessary.

Tentative plans call for Scalia's body to be flown on Tuesday back home to his family in a northern Virginia suburb. U.S. President Barack Obama ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the high court, where Scalia had served for three decades, and other federal buildings throughout the nation as well as U.S. embassies and military installations throughout the world.

Scalia, who was born in 1936 in Trenton, New Jersey, was appointed to the high court by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1986 until his death. He was the longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court and was well-known for passionately opposing abortion and strongly supporting the death penalty. Enditem