Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer robbed by man with machete in West Indies home

By Globe Staff

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a former long-time professor at Harvard and judge in federal appeals court in Boston, was robbed last week by a machete-wielding intruder at his vacation home in the West Indies, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said today.

Stephen Breyer (Steve Helber/AP)

The 73-year-old Breyer, wife Joanna and guests were confronted by the robber around 9 p.m. Thursday in the home Breyer owns on the Caribbean island of Nevis, spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. The intruder took about $1,000 in cash and no one was hurt, Arberg said.

She said the robbery was reported to local authorities, but she did not know if an arrest has been made.

Breyer reported on his most recent annual disclosure in June that property he owns on Nevis is worth between $100,000 and $250,000.

Breyer was an assistant professor, professor of law, and lecture at Harvard Law School from 1997 to 1994. He also worked as a professor at the Kennedy School of Government from 1977 to 1980.

From 1980 to 1994, he served on the First US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, including the last four years as chief judge.

He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton and took his seat in August 1994.

In June, the Globe reported that Breyer had broken his right collarbone near his home in Cambridge. In 1993, he had suffered more serious injuries, a punctured lung and broken ribs, when he was hit by a car while riding his bike across Harvard Square.

The last time a justice was the victim of a crime was in 2004, when a group of young men assaulted Justice David Souter as he jogged on a city street. Souter suffered minor injuries.

In 1996, a man snatched Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s purse while she was out walking with her husband and daughter near their home in Washington. Ginsburg was not hurt.

The justices return from a nearly month-long recess for a closed-door conference on Friday. They will next meet in public on February 21.

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.