Security for Federal Judges Varies

My Way News ^ | 3/13/05 | TOM HAYS/AP

[wagglebee]

NEW YORK (AP) - Nearly a decade after they presided over terrorism trials, two federal judges still are under 24-hour protection by deputy U.S. marshals, who complain their duties include carrying groceries and golf clubs.

Documents show that the security for U.S. District Judges Michael B. Mukasey and Kevin Thomas Duffy and their spouses far exceeds the protection given any other federal judge around the country, including the judge in Chicago whose husband and mother were slain earlier this month.

Experts and officials say the seemingly random approach to protecting judges in Chicago and New York reflects the complexity of assessing and responding to threats against the roughly 2,000 federal judges and magistrates nationwide, a job that falls on the U.S. Marshals Service.

There is no foolproof approach, said Howard Safir, the former New York City police commissioner who once headed operations for the Marshals Service in Washington.

"Threat analysis is an art, not a science," said Safir, now head of the SafirRosetti security firm. "There's no absolute way to determine whether a judge is in danger. ... You tend to err on the side of providing protection."

A personnel grievance recently obtained by The Associated Press gives a behind-the-scenes look at other potential problems.

The grievance - submitted by about three dozen deputies who help protect Mukasey and Duffy around the clock - alleges the judges and their spouses have abused their position and compromised security by expecting their bodyguards "to carry groceries, luggage and golf clubs." If they object, the "protectees" subject them to "condescending comments," it says.

Deputies "who are busy loading and unloading groceries clearly cannot immediately react to an attack," the grievance says.

A Marshals Service spokeswoman in Washington, Nikki Credic, confirmed the grievance had been filed but would not elaborate.

There was no comment from Mukasey, who did not return phone messages left at his chambers on Friday. Duffy declined to comment.

In a statement issued Friday, the service called judicial security its "most important task," and insisted security decisions are "assessed on a case-by-case basis and in full consultation with the jurist or jurists at risk."

In the Chicago case, security for U.S. District Joan Humphrey Lefkow was withdrawn with her concurrence after the conviction of a man who is now awaiting sentencing for soliciting her murder, officials said. She had received special protection for about two weeks in 2003 after the man was arrested.

Mukasey, 64, the district's chief judge, and Duffy, 71, have a history of doling out tough talk and stiff sentences in terror cases.

In 1998, Duffy gave the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, a 240-year prison term, calling him an "apostle of evil." At the 1996 sentencing of coconspirators in a plot to blow up the United Nations and other city landmarks, Mukasey accused Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman of trying to spread death "in a scale unseen in this country since the civil war," then sentenced him to a life term.

More recently, Mukasey presided over hearings for alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla. Following the 2001 conviction of four men in the attack on U.S. embassies in Africa, the case against the remaining fugitive defendants - including Osama bin Laden - was transferred to Duffy.

A largely overlooked study last year by the Justice Department's inspector general cites classified documents and says two unnamed judges who are under special protection remain "under express death threats from terrorist groups."

In an interview earlier this year, U.S. District Judge William G. Young, who presided over the Boston trial of al-Qaida shoe bomber Richard Reid, said most federal judges don't want "to be surrounded by bodyguards wherever we go."

However, judges should receive extra protection "as long as the threat exists," he said. "I really think it should be the judge's decision."

[wagglebee]

Nearly a decade after they presided over terrorism trials, two federal judges still are under 24-hour protection by deputy U.S. marshals, who complain their duties include carrying groceries and golf clubs.

That beats pimping for BJ Klintoon.

[KenmcG414]

The judges want protection! When are the citizens going to get protection from the lousy, liberal decisions the idiot judges make. How many times are criminals released on society because of a technicality or a non-sensical decision by a judge. How many times do we hear about killers and rapists continuing their lives of crime after the judiciary did not do their job (ie we can't execute 17 yr old murderers. The chickens are coming home to roost!