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October 07, 2024 Judicial Security

ABA supports creating judicial threat center

There is a crisis in America’s courthouses. Threats against judges are rising at an alarming rate. Over the past three years, the number of federal judges identified as targets of violent threats has more than doubled, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

The establishment of a judicial threat center has been supported by an ABA House of Delegates' resolution.

The establishment of a judicial threat center has been supported by an ABA House of Delegates' resolution.

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In fiscal year 2023 alone, marshals investigated more than 1,000 threats to federal courts, judges and court employees.

In response, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced the Countering Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act. It would create a State Judicial Threat Intelligence and Resource Center within the State Justice Institute. The new center would:

  • Provide technical assistance, training and monitoring of threats against state and local judges and court personnel
  • Provide physical security assessments
  • Coordinate research to identify, examine and advance best practices around court security

The Senate has approved the bill, but the House has not yet acted on it.  

The ABA strongly supports these efforts. At the Annual Meeting in Chicago in August, the ABA House of Delegates adopted Resolution 516, urging Congress to pass the act or any similar legislation establishing the proposed judicial threat center.

Since then, the ABA Governmental Affairs Office has conveyed this support to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and has offered the association’s help to the bill’s sponsors.

Threats to judges and courts have emerged as one of the most important issues of 2024.

Last month, a top security official warned federal judges that their courthouses could face security threats as the election nears. According to a report from Reuters news service, Paul Gamble, chief of security with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, wrote to the judges saying courts are often targeted “during times of increased national tension.”

Gamble cited “recent suspicious letters sent to state officials” and attached an alert that the FBI and Postal Inspection Service issued last month after election officials in several states received letters containing suspicious substances. The alert contained a picture of one letter from a sender identified as “United States Traitor Elimination Army.”

Two attacks on judges and courts made news last month.

On Sept. 19, District Judge Kevin Mullins was shot to death in his chambers in Letcher County, Kentucky. The county sheriff was arrested and accused of the murder. A motive for the attack is still unknown.

Six days later, on Sept. 25, a man in Santa Maria, California, threw a bomb into the lobby of a Santa Barbara County courthouse, injuring at least five people. Prosecutors said the man wanted to kill deputies at the court’s security screening station so he could then retrieve guns and kill a judge.

Protecting judges is one of the ABA’s highest priorities. In 2021, the ABA House of Delegates passed a resolution supporting a proposed law to protects judges’ private information, so it cannot be used by bad actors to attack judges and their families.

That bill, the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act, was named for the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas of New Jersey. The judge’s only child was killed and her husband wounded by a disgruntled litigant who came to the judge’s house, seeking to kill her. Congress passed the act in December 2022.

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