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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Courts - "Judges no strangers to balancing security "

MSNBC's Carrie Dann has a long story today that begins:

WASHINGTON — As Americans grapple with the Tucson shootings and congressional lawmakers reexamine changes in their personal security measures, members of the judiciary branch are also mourning the loss of one of their own — a dreaded occurrence for a community that has faced mounting threats of violence in recent years.

U.S. District Judge John M. Roll was among the six people killed Saturday when he dropped by a community event held by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shortly before 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire.

While it appears that Roll was not a specific target, his death — especially in light of the scores of threats he received earlier in his career — underscored the safety risks members of the judiciary branch at all levels have faced for decades.

Later in the story:
Many judges began taking additional precautions after a Chicago district judge’s husband and mother were found murdered in her home in 2005. Then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist assembled a special panel of officials at the time to assess how security for members of the judiciary could be improved.

“We certainly are very mindful of the dangers of those that are in public life,” said Judge Michael Kanne of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who now chairs that panel.

But, Kanne added, the financial and personal prices of additional security measures present a puzzle. Congress recently began making funds available for home security devices to all federal judges, for example, but a program for firearms training for all judges has been shelved. * * *

While officials in state courts usually depend upon law enforcement as well as state and local funding to augment their security, the defense of federal judges falls under the purview of the U.S Marshals. The Marshals Service — part of the Department of Justice — is responsible for the protection of approximately 10,000 members of the federal judiciary and federal prosecutors.

That burden has become weightier as threats against federal judicial officials have ballooned. According to a Justice Department report released last year, almost 6,000 threats were leveled against federal judicial officials between 2002 and 2008. Last year, the Marshals Service investigated and analyzed approximately 1,395 threats and inappropriate communications — nearly three times as many threats recorded in 2003.

ILB: The Chicago federal district judge whose family members were murdered was Judge Joan H. Lefkow. Here are some of the ILB entries from 2005:

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 11, 2011 12:45 PM
Posted to Courts in general