Key Takeaways
- The US Chief Justice warns of increasing threats of violence against judges, undermining judicial independence.
- Over 1,000 investigations have been launched into threats against judges, with a significant increase in hostile threats.
- The US Marshals Service reports a significant uptick in identified threats, with judges facing intimidation, disinformation, and violence.
Washington: Judges in the US are facing an increasing number of threats of violence, intimidation, and disinformation, as well as officials defying court decisions, Chief Justice John Roberts has said.
“There is no place for violence against judges. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in identified threats at all levels of the judiciary. Over 1,000 investigations have been launched into threats that required a full-time security detail for judges, and the volume of hostile threats has more than tripled over the past decade.” Roberts said in his end-of-the-year report, released on Tuesday.
In the past five years alone, there have been over 1,000 investigations into threats that required an assignment of a full-time security detail for judges, the report added.
“The final threat to judicial independence is defiance of judgments lawfully entered by courts of competent jurisdiction… But judicial independence is undermined unless the other branches are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees,” Roberts said without clarifying which branches or officials attempted to undermine legal rulings but said that they claimed that the courts’ decisions were politically motivated.
Violence is not the only threat faced by US judges, as some court critics use what Roberts called “doxing,” which is making public otherwise private information such as a judge’s phone number or home address, which, in turn, can lead to “a flood of angry, profane phone calls to the judge’s office or home.”
