Threatened Judiciary

Naaah--they're not an endangered species, for good or ill...

However, there's a spin out there. The usual slander: it's the eeeeeeeevilll Limbaugh/Coulter/Sykes/Belling/Boortz (et al) cabal which is causing this.

Threats against federal judges are on a record-setting pace this year, nearly 18 months after the family of a federal judge was killed in Chicago.

U.S. Marshals, who protect the nation's 2,200 federal judges, believe they averted another potential tragedy in the Midwest last year when they helped block the release of a prison inmate who told a judge in a series of sexually charged letters that he was going to take her away.

Threats and inappropriate communications have quadrupled over 10 years ago. There were 201 reported such incidents in the 1996 government spending year and 943 in the year that ended Sept. 30, the Marshals Service said.

This year alone, the Marshals Service has had 822 reports of inappropriate communications and threats, a pace that would top 1,000 for the year.

The US Marshals Service also happens to understand the REAL causes:

Marshals say a portion of the increase can be attributed to a heightened focus by judges and their staffs since the February 2005 incident in which unemployed electrician Bart Ross broke into the home of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow and shot to death her husband and mother.

In other words, judges are paying attention to the moonbat letters.

The rise in civil lawsuits, especially those filed by people who do not have lawyers, and a change in criminal cases in federal courts helps explain the rise, Marshals say.

Donald Donovan, chief deputy marshal in Baltimore, said people who file and lose multiple lawsuits account for the largest percentage of threats. "They don't agree with the outcome of cases. They are repeat filers. Many of them are a bit unstable," Donovan said.

Dealing with inappropriate comments sometimes means "assisting someone with getting back on their medication," said Donald Horton, chief inspector in the protective security division.

Doesn't look like a vast right-wing conspiracy so far...

Federal courts now handle many more violent crime prosecutions, the sorts of cases that were the province of state and local courts as recently as 10 years ago.

"There is rarely a trial now that does not have defendants eligible for the death penalty," Donovan said

STILL no conspiracy. Damn!!

Well, then, we'll just make one up!!! All the marks of the Xoff-Doyle advertising campaign, with the same credibility.