Courts Seek More Funds to Defend Federal Judges From Threats

Court officials asked Congress for more money next year for security measures, as the federal judiciary combats heightened threats to judges.

The judiciary proposed $920.9 million for courthouse security measures in fiscal 2027, which begins Oct. 1, in what would be a 3.2% increase over current funding levels. The funding would pay for court security officers and fixes to outdated or broken security equipment, according to the proposal publicly posted on Wednesday.

These security efforts are “more urgent than ever,” US Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve, who chairs the budget committee for the judiciary’s policymaking body, and Robert Conrad, who directs the courts’ administrative office, wrote in a joint letter to lawmakers.

The security resources are sought as part of a $9.7 billion budget request, a 4.5% increase from last year’s funding ask.

According to their proposal, “security incidents of significant concern” for judges increased by 57% last fiscal year and are “on pace to rise again.” Federal authorities logged 564 threats against federal judges last fiscal year and 241 threats against federal judges so far this fiscal year, according to March 16 government data.

Current and former federal judges described antiquated and broken equipment, including nonfunctioning security cameras, outdated key card systems, and vulnerable building exteriors, in interviews with Bloomberg Law last year.

The proposed security money would include nearly $20 million for the judiciary’s vulnerability management program, which aims to help federal judges and their families remove personally identifying information online.

The judiciary’s proposal would also continue a pilot program to have the US Marshals Service protect federal courthouse grounds outside of buildings, a responsibility currently handled by the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service. Feedback in courts picked for the pilot program “has been uniformly positive,” according to budget documents.

The majority of court security funding allocated by Congress is transferred to the Marshals Service, the Justice Department agency tasked with protecting federal judges, according to the proposal.

Cyber Attacks

The judiciary is asking for $10 million for a new case management system after multiple cyber attacks. Judiciary officials said this month that they’re moving up the timeline for the new system after a hack last year. Bloomberg Law previously reported that foreign hackers targeted sealed documents in sensitive cases.

Court officials are also seeking $49.7 million for the final year of an ongoing cybersecurity and IT modernization plan. The funds will go toward work that’s “critical to combatting increasingly persistent and sophisticated attacks against the judiciary’s systems and networks,” the request reads.

The request also acknowledges a spike in litigation and prosecutions tied to the Trump administration, saying that the projected and actual numbers of cases and workloads used to guide the budget request “have been volatile since the start of the new Administration as they implement new priorities.”

Public Defenders

The judiciary is also requesting $1.8 billion for federal defenders, who represent criminal defendants who can’t afford private attorneys, a 1.5% increase over this year.

The proposed funding upticks comes less than a year after the court system ran out of money to reimburse private attorneys who help the defenders take on cases for indigent defendants, leaving those attorneys fronting their own expenses for months.

The federal defenders were also under a hiring freeze for 16 months, making it “increasingly challenging” to address rising caseloads, particularly in immigration and death penalty cases, the request says.

The requested funds will provide the “needed resources” to address an increase in death penalty cases, following a Justice Department memo last year lifting a temporary pause on federal executions, according to the budget documents.

There were more capital prosecution cases filed from April through October 2025 than in all of the previous 12-month period combined, according to the documents.