In a disturbing front-page story (above the fold), today's WaPo reports on a dramatic spike in threats to judges and prosecutors.
The threats and other harassing communications against federal court personnel have more than doubled in the past six years, from 592 to 1,278, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Worried federal officials blame disgruntled defendants whose anger is fueled by the Internet; terrorism and gang cases that bring more violent offenders into federal court; frustration at the economic crisis; and the rise of the "sovereign citizen" movement -- a loose collection of tax protesters, white supremacists and others who don't respect federal authority.
It's almost as bad for state judges and prosecutors, though no numbers are available. According to one of the top officials responsible for protecting federal judges, the increasing violence represents nothing less than a threat to "the core of our civil liberties."
Much of the concern is rooted in the brutal double murder of Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother by a former plaintiff upset that she threw out a medical malpractice suit. Since then, the threats and actual acts of violence have really started to ramp up. Among them:
- Pipe bombs going off outside the San Diego federal courthouse
- The defendant in a Brooklyn drug case choked a federal prosecutor during sentencing.
- A DC federal prosecutor was faced with threats to kill her and kidnap her son if she didn't drop a murder investigation.
- Reggie Walton, the judge in the Valerie Plame case, received several threatening letters after he ordered Scooter Libby to prison.
- A federal judge in DC had his picture put in a rifle's crosshairs on the Internet after an environmental ruling.
But perhaps the worst threats, at least in my mind, came to John Roll, the chief federal judge in Arizona. After he refused to throw out a suit by illegal immigrants, he was the target of ugly death threats from as far away as Baltimore. After some moran posted his name and address on a Web site laden with more threats, he was placed under 24-hour protection for a month.
It's gotten so bad that marshals have set up a 24-hour emergency response center in Arlington County, and have installed security systems in most judges' homes. Many judges have scrubbed their pictures and personal information from the Web.
It's almost as bad at the state level. Consider what happened to Mike Cicconetti, a popular municipal court judge in suburban Cleveland.
(P)olice played a tape for him of a defendant in a minor tax case plotting to blow up the judge's house. "I hear a man's voice talk about putting a bomb in the house, and another voice says, 'What if there are kids involved?' and the first man says, 'They're just collateral damage,' " the father of five recalled.
Cicconetti evacuated his family for a terrifying week in which they were under guard and stayed at friends' houses. "I couldn't go to work for two weeks. I was too shaken up. I couldn't think," he said. For months, the judge was nervous every time a car drove by his home. His children were afraid to go to bed; their grades dropped.
Cicconetti now carries a stun gun on the bench.
Fortunately, there's no record yet of judges actually being killed with this spike in threats. But this story should serve as a warning--Obama isn't the only one whose safety we need to worry about.