Information-sharing bill could protect court workers

Key Takeaways

There’s a significant constituency that stands to benefit from the Countering Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act — roughly 30,000 judicial officers who serve in state and local courts.

Those officials don’t have access to the U.S. Marshals service, which provides security and tracks threats to federal judges. 

In fact, they’re largely blind to what’s out there.

“They have virtually no access to experts or resources to understand the threat environment, take personal protective measures, design more secure court facilities or share threat information,” Matthew Vigeant told the NACo Justice and Public Safety Policy Steering Committee Feb. 21. “The sharing of information is maybe the biggest issue.”

Vigeant is counsel to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is sponsoring the bill with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a former New Castle County executive.

The bill passed the Senate during the last Congress on a bipartisan basis with endorsement from the entire Senate Judiciary Committee but didn’t move in the House. The American Bar Association has reported that the number of serious threats against judges doubled between 2019 and 2024. On top of that, several threats became attempts on judges’ lives over the last 10 years, including assassinations in Wisconsin and Maryland.

The bill would not offer any grant funding but would create several resources for judicial workers.

It would:

• Establish a state judicial threat, intelligence and resource center, providing technical assistance to state and local judges and court personnel regarding judicial security.
• Provide physical security assessments for courts, homes and other facilities.
• Coordinate research to identify, examine and advance best practices around judicial security.
• Provide a central tracker for threats that can be shared across state lines.

Those functions would be funded by the nonprofit State Justice Institute.

Before Travis County, Texas Judge Julie Kocurek was shot in her driveway in 2017, her assailant had stalked her and had previously been arrested in Louisiana for stalking another judge.

“That information, because there was no mechanism to share it, wasn’t passed on,” Vigeant said. “And if it had been, maybe precautions could have been taken.

“We’re not creating any new grants, but it could end up saving lives.”