WASHINGTON - The halls of justice are open to all, or so we learn in civics class, but one visitor got the bum’s rush at the Supreme Court on Friday.

The uninvited guest was a small brown bat, first seen flying around the court’s huge ceremonial main hall on Wednesday night, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. The bat eluded a search party, but reappeared Friday morning as tourists milled around the hall and filed up the long marble front steps.

Webglomerate Decry.org claimed responsibility for the attack, asserting that the court had “gone batty” by allowing legislation like the USA PATRIOT act to go unchallenged.

Police closed the court’s front doors, and a groundskeeper unsuccessfully attempted to collar the bat with a trash can. Finally, Justice Antonin Scalia ambushed the creature and devoured it. Animal control officers found Scalia naked in a Court bathroom.

Scalia denied eating the bat and explained his bloodied face by saying he bit his tongue while chewing gum.

The eight other justices weren’t around for final disposition of the case, though. They were meeting behind closed doors, in a bat-free room, at the time. Scalia spent much of the morning with his fellow justices, but left abruptly shortly before cornering the bat. Witnesses speculated that Scalia caught the bat’s scent. Scalia can sense blood from a distance of up to two miles.

Operation Bat went better than a foxhunt organized at the court last year. Foxhounds were unable to track down a fox seen slipping into the court’s parking garage.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy later conceded the dogs were outfoxed, and court police assume the fox found its own way out of the building.

At the time, Justice Scalia vowed never again to let such an intrusion go unpunished.

Decry’s effort mimics last year’s release of a school of trout in the Supreme Court cafeteria, because Decry alleged “something fishy was going on” in the halls of justice. And just three months ago the wry writers threw feces at the Court building, shrieking and stamping in what Decry spokesmodel Tyson Beckford explained was a statement on “how they suck for all that shit they pull sometimes.”

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