Report: US judges in danger
US judges aren't being adequately protected from potential threats to their lives, according to a new report from the Justice Department which comes little more than two years after family members of a Chicago judge were murdered.
Released by DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine, the report says that the US Marshals -- the division of law enforcement responsible for protecting federal judges -- must demonstrate a "greater sense of urgency," and that "efforts to improve its capabilities to assess reported threats" had languished since 2006.
In 2005, US District Judge Joan Lefkow's home was broken into by 57-year- old Bart Ross, a disgruntled litigant who had unsuccessfully sued the federal government for one billion dollars over a medical malpractice issue. Ross murdered Lefkow's husband and mother.
Following the tragedy, Lefkow had testified before the US Senate, imploring legislators to better fund security measures protecting judges.
But the new assessment concluded that the Marshals Service still had an understaffed central intelligence center, hadn't created a planned rapid deployment team, and was not able to analyze potential threats quickly enough.
"It's not our expertise to know when we need protection," Lefkow said of judges during her testimony. "That's why I think we need someone in the Marshals Service -- or we need the Marshals Service to really study and analyze this issue and help as law enforcement people to help us understand 'yes, you need protection."
A 2006 survey also newly released by the inspector general's office found that nearly 70 percent of 2,141 judges reported that they had been threatened during their careers.
"Given the importance of the issue of judicial protection, and the threats to federal judges in the past, we believe that the Marshals Service should move quickly to implement its plans to improve the protection of the federal judiciary," Inspector General Fine said in a statement.
The report did contain some encouraging news, indicating that the homes of 95 percent of federal judges have been outfitted with alarm systems. Judge Lefkow has previously said that an alarm might have prevented the murders of her family members.
The following video clips are from CBS News, Chicago, broadcast on October 3, 2007.
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