Judges Warn of More Politically Borne Threats, Disinformation

Threats against judges and attacks on the legitimacy of the judiciary are moving from isolated cases to becoming more widespread, including politically influenced incidents and efforts from overseas to discredit courts, federal and state judges said.

Disclosures and warnings by a panel at a Federalist Society conference in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday spotlighted what’s already getting more attention after a string of incidents and statements by members of the judiciary, including the Supreme Court.

“We’re always going to have the disgruntled litigant” coming after a judge in a one off occurrence, said Elizabeth Branch of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

But the broader partisan divide and extreme positions people are taking against judges are leading to “much more of a growing concern. We have to figure out, how do we get a handle on what is becoming more of a global threat?” she said.

The judiciary has been raising concerns about threats, emphasizing the issue anew after US District Judge Esther Salas’ son was killed in July 2020 by a gunman at her New Jersey home.

The US Marshals Service investigated over 450 threats against federal judges in 2023—more than twice the number from four years earlier.

The Texas panel discussed the physical violence and gruesome threats that many judges can be subjected to when they take the bench, as well as attacks on the legitimacy of the justice system.

Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht also said “concerted efforts to undermine the courts as an institution” are “not an insular idea.”

He said he has heard from the US Homeland Security Department that Russians are engaged in “a very vigorous campaign to discredit the United States to our people” by circulating misinformation on the courts.

This includes refrains about the justice system favoring business or that only rich people can be heard by the courts.

“This is all propaganda that they use because they think it works to discourage American citizens from having confidence in their institutions and their government,” Hecht said. “This is a really serious threat to the justice system.”

Physical Violence

Branch and Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas noted that violent incidents involving judges are becoming increasingly political.

“Instead of planning for a crank who may have been disappointed in some post-conviction relief ruling that you made 10 years ago, now I know that there’s monitoring for politically motivated violence. That’s a definite pivot,” Kacsmaryk said.

Kacsmaryk’s court received death threats and harassment in the midst of litigation over the abortion pill, which he temporarily restricted access to.

Branch noted the Alaska man indicted last week for threatening to kill and torture members of the US Supreme Court.

“The risks of being murdered, the risks of having our families killed, these are not risks that any of us should have to endure. These risks need to be mitigated,” Branch said.

She said that she is troubled that “threats are following us home.” She mentioned the assassination attempt on US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh outside of his home in Maryland in the spring of 2022 relating to abortion and gun cases, and the 1989 murder of Judge Robert Vance, a predecessor on the Eleventh Circuit who was killed by an exploding package inside his home in Alabama.

A judicial security measure that became federal law following the shooting at Salas’s home aims to keep personally identifiable information off the internet.

Legitimacy Targeted

Hecht said attacks on the courts as an institution “are very brutal as well.”

He said media coverage that claims judicial decisions are political or that calls judges unethical undermines the judiciary and makes people think the courts are unfair.

Judges have also spoken on the need to be clearer about their decisions and how they reach them, particularly as courts have come under attack and public opinion of the judiciary has fallen.

The Fifth Circuit’s James Ho said Saturday that judges need to ignore the rhetoric and not give in to the fear of what he called cancel culture.

“At the end of the day, what we want is a legal system for everybody,” Ho said. “You may win, you may lose, but you should win and lose based on the law, not because the judge is worried about having ethics attacks or their public reputation smeared,” Ho said.