Killing of judge's family highlights lack of security for bench

Date: 20/03/2005
Source: Associated Press
Author: Nicole Ziegler Dizon

CHICAGO -- When US District Judge Joan Lefkow discovered the bodies of her husband and mother in her home last month, she was alone -- without bodyguards or a police officer keeping watch over her from a car nearby.

Yet every day, politicians, from governors and mayors down to California's school superintendent and Chicago's city treasurer, routinely travel with protection provided by the taxpayers.

It is a disparity that is getting more attention after the killings of Lefkow's family members by a man upset over a malpractice case and the recent shooting rampage that began in an Atlanta courthouse and left a judge and three others dead.

''I think the events of the past few weeks have kind of been a fire bell waking people up that perhaps our security may not be adequate for our members of the judicial branch," said Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois, who has lobbied against bodyguards for lower-profile politicians. Quinn declined a security detail and said the money could be better used for judges.

Right now, federal and other judges generally get bodyguards only when there is a credible threat against them.

Lefkow, for example, had a US Marshals detail assigned to her for about two weeks in 2003, around the time white supremacist Matt Hale was arrested on charges of trying to have someone kill her. According to news reports, Lefkow and the Marshals Service agreed to drop the detail -- and remove the surveillance cameras the agency installed at her home -- after the threat seemed to subside.

Judges say that there is not enough money for bodyguards for everyone on the bench, but they say government can and should do more, from paying for home security systems to assigning psychologists to courthouses to identify people who might be dangerous.

Lefkow's husband and mother were shot to death by a man who had waged a decade-long legal battle against the doctors he said disfigured him during cancer surgery. He committed suicide last week.

On Tuesday, the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policy-making body of the federal judiciary, asked the government for better security, particularly at judges' homes, and the money to pay for it.

''We have been concerned about off-site security . . . and the Lefkow tragedy emphasized that very real concern," said Jane R. Roth, a federal appeals court judge in Delaware and head of the conference's committee on security.

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