In America

 

The Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009259159_judges25.html

Published Monday, May 25, 2009

 

Threats against judges, prosecutors escalate

Threats against the nation's judges and prosecutors have increased sharply, prompting hundreds to get 24-hour protection from armed U.S.S. marshals.

By Jerry Markon

The Washington Post 

WASHINGTON  -  Threats against the nation's judges and prosecutors have increased sharply, prompting hundreds to get 24-hour protection from armed U.S. marshals. Many federal judges are altering their routes to work, installing security systems at home, shielding their addresses by paying bills at the courthouse or refraining from registering to vote. Some even pack weapons on the bench.

The problem has become so pronounced that a high-tech "threat management" center opened recently in Arlington, Va., where about 25 marshals and analysts monitor a 24-hour number for reporting threats, use sophisticated mapping software to track those being threatened and tap into a classified database linked to the FBI and CIA.

"I live with a constant heightened sense of awareness," said John Adams, a federal judge in Ohio who began taking firearms classes after a federal judge's family was slain in Chicago and takes a pistol to the courthouse on weekends. "If I'm going to carry a firearm, I'd better know how to use it."

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 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.

Much of the concern was fueled by the 2005 slaying of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother in their Chicago home and a rampage 11 days later by an Atlanta rape suspect, who killed a judge, the court stenographer and a deputy. Several pipe bombs exploded outside the federal courthouse in San Diego last year, and a drug defendant wielding a razor blade briefly choked a federal prosecutor during sentencing in New York. In March, a homicide suspect attacked a judge in a California courtroom and was shot to death by police.

The Justice Department and FBI continue to investigate the Seattle slaying of Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Wales, who was shot Oct. 11, 2001, in the basement of his Queen Anne home. From the outset, investigators suspected a commercial-airline pilot whom Wales had prosecuted in a fraud case because the case continued to generate ill feelings even after charges were dropped. Federal marshals immediately placed another prosecutor in the fraud case under 24-hour guard.

Although attacks on federal-court personnel have not increased, the explosion of vitriolic threats has prompted a growing law-enforcement crackdown aimed at preventing them. The marshals service, which protects judges and prosecutors, says several hundred require 24-hour guard for days, weeks or months each year, depending on the case.

"We have to make sure that every judge and prosecutor can go to work every day and carry out the rule of law," said Michael Prout, assistant director of judicial security for the marshals, who have trained hundreds of police and deputies to better protect local court officials.

"It's the core of our civil liberties," Prout said.

State court officials are seeing the same trend, although no numbers are available. "There's a higher level of anger, whether it's defendants or their families," said Timothy Fautsko, who coordinates security education for the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va., and said threats come from violent offenders along with divorce, probate and other civil litigants.

Threats are emerging in cases large and small, on the Internet, by telephone, in letters and in person. In Washington, D.C., two men have pleaded not guilty to charges of vowing to kill a federal prosecutor and kidnap her adult son if she didn't drop a homicide investigation. The judge in the CIA leak case received threatening letters when he ordered prison time for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. A man near Richmond, Va., was charged with mailing threats to a prosecutor over three traffic offenses. The face of a federal judge in Washington, D.C., was put in a rifle's cross hairs on the Internet after he issued a controversial environmental ruling, judicial sources said.

Hundreds of threats cascaded into the chambers of John Roll, the chief U.S. district judge in Arizona, in February after he allowed a lawsuit filed by illegal immigrants against a rancher to go forward.

"They cursed him out, threatened to kill his family, said they'd come and take care of him. They really wanted him dead," said a law-enforcement official who heard the calls - which came from as far as Richmond and Baltimore - but spoke on condition of anonymity because no one has been charged.

David Gonzales, a U.S. marshal in Arizona, said deputies put the judge under 24-hour protection for about a month, guarding his home, screening his mail and escorting him to court, to the gym and to Mass.

"Some deputies went to church more in a week than they had in their lives," Gonzales said.

The stress nearly overcame Michael Cicconetti, a municipal-court judge in Painesville, Ohio, after police played a tape for him of a defendant in a minor tax case plotting to blow up the judge's house. 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. The judge now has a security system in his home - and a stun gun within reach in court.

Sibley Reynolds, an Alabama state court judge who prosecutors said was threatened last year by the son of a defendant convicted of stealing about $3,000 from a humane shelter, packs the real thing - a Colt automatic pistol. He keeps it under his robe, in his waistband.

"I don't go anywhere without my security with me," Reynolds said.

Court officials could not say how often judges arm themselves. But the marshals have installed home-security systems for most federal judges since the Lefkow incident, and many are removing their photos from court Web sites and shielding their home addresses.

The Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking arm headed by the Supreme Court chief justice, soon will distribute a DVD with security tips. It will be called Project 365, for security 365 days a year.

"Judges today are far more security-conscious than they ever have been," said Henry Hudson, a federal judge in Richmond who is working on the DVD. "I don't think it's at the point where it's interfering with their judgment and dedication to their jobs."

Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report.

Copyright � 2009 The Seattle Times Company 

______________________________________________

J.A.I.L. (Judicial Accountability Initiative Law) www.jail4judges.org, has been in existence since 1995, and is in all 50 states and foreign countries.

To manage your email, place the word Subscribe or Unsubscribe

in 'subject' line and hit reply. Your request will be automatically & instantly

processed.

 

Our Founding Fathers said, "...with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine

Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and

our sacred honor." Dec. of Independence. We are a ministry in great need of

your financial support. Donate to this vitally important work at;

"J.A.I.L."  P.O. Box 207, North Hollywood, CA 91603

 

J.A.I.L. is a unique addition to our Constitution heretofore unrealized.

JAIL is powerful! JAIL is dynamic! JAIL is America's ONLY hope!

 

E-Group sign on at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jail4judges/join

Visit our active flash - http://www.jail4judges.org/Flash.htm

 

*   *   *

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to

our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to

their acts of pretended legislation.    - Declaration of Independence
 
"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless

minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."  - Samuel Adams
 
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is

striking at the root."   -- Henry David Thoreau                     ><)))'>