Judge Rebecca Beach Smith Rules the Titanic Wreck From a Norfolk Courtroom

Since 1987, the salvager R.M.S. Titanic Inc. has raised roughly 5,500 artifacts from the wreck of the Titanic under the eye of a single federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia. Judge Rebecca Beach Smith has presided over what may be the most intriguing case in maritime law, according to the source report, and in August she extended a temporary ban on any sale of the collection.

The judge works from the old Art Deco federal courthouse in Norfolk. Maritime law's quirks give her unusual power over a shipwreck lying at the bottom of the North Atlantic, and she has exercised that power for decades.

What does the court actually control?

R.M.S. Titanic Inc. recovered the artifacts under a court-sanctioned understanding: it can never sell the objects. It can display them. And it has. The company runs permanent exhibitions in Las Vegas and Orlando, plus traveling shows that, taken together, have been seen by 35 million people.

That arrangement has held since the salvage effort began in 1987. It now faces its sharpest test.

Why is the company asking to sell?

In March, the company argued in court papers that it was broke. It said it needed to auction hundreds of the artifacts so it could take good care of the rest and pay off its debts.

Judge Smith was skeptical. Years ago, as a younger judge, she sometimes raised her voice and stared down lawyers whom she questioned. At a Titanic hearing in August, she took a different tack, speaking in a conversational tone as she probed the depth of the company's financial straits — her authority firmly established by four decades on the bench.

"There seems to have been misrepresentations to the court in this regard," she said icily.

Two weeks later, she extended a temporary ban on any sale.

What does this change for the Titanic's artifacts?

The clash puts the collection's future in doubt while the court weighs the company's survival against the never-sell rule that has protected the objects for nearly four decades. The judge's pending decision will determine whether the 5,500-piece collection stays intact or heads to the auction block — and whether one judge's long stewardship of the sunken ship endures.