TRENTON, N.J. — Elected officials are eroding confidence in the judicial system, and the vitriol increasingly espoused by politicians angry over court rulings can have dangerous implications, two federal judges told NBC News.
“When you call us monsters, and when you say we hate America, and you post that on a large social platform, and when you say it in front of the cameras day in and day out, and when it’s written, and when people put up wanted posters,” U.S. District Judge Esther Salas said. “You are doing that for one reason, and that is to erode the public’s confidence.”
Salas, whose only child was killed in 2020 by a man targeting her, and retired U.S. District Judge John Jones III sat down with NBC News as part of the network’s Common Ground initiative aimed at bringing leaders from different perspectives together to discuss solutions on bridging that gap.
Salas was appointed to the New Jersey bench in 2011 by Democratic President Barack Obama. Jones was appointed in 2002 by Republican George W. Bush and spent 19 years on the Pennsylvania bench before his retirement in 2021. Both discussed their growing concerns about the safety of the judiciary.
Threats are rising. So far this year, there have been 324 threats against 253 federal judges, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, the federal agency tasked with protecting federal judges. Last year, there were 564 threats tracked by the agency.
Last year, Sophie Roske was sentenced to roughly eight years in prison after pleading guilty to attempting to kill U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Roske showed up to Kavanaugh’s home with a firearm, several magazines of ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdrivers, a nail punch and a crowbar.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, assigned to the now-dismissed case against President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, faced so many threats that she was flanked by U.S. marshals in public areas of the federal courthouse in the District of Columbia.
And just last week, police were sent to the Virginia home of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett after an apparent “swatting” attempt, in which someone makes a fake emergency call to trick law enforcement into sending teams.
“I think there are going to be rippling effects that we’re going to feel for decades,” Salas said.
Salas has firsthand knowledge of the violence. Her 20-year-old son, Daniel, was fatally shot and her husband critically injured in July 2020 after a self-proclaimed “men’s rights” lawyer posed as a deliveryman and rang the bell of their home. The lawyer had appeared before Salas in connection with a lawsuit he brought and was later found dead in his car of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Salas could have stepped down, but she chose instead to continue on and raise awareness about the growing concerns.
“When someone sacrifices their life for you, you don’t squander yours. My son’s ultimate act of love was taking that bullet,” Salas said.
Referring to herself as “Daniel’s mom,” she said the only way there will be change is if there is increased attention to the threats facing judges. She said she is “banging this drum that something awful is happening, and we have to do something about it.”
While Salas never mentioned Trump’s name during the interview, there was no question to whom she was referring, citing the impact of the nation’s leaders, who have such a significant following, using dangerous rhetoric.
Salas said she sees “the President of the United States, and his Cabinet on down” engaging in irresponsible rhetoric around judges.
“I mean, look at those terms. Monsters, idiots, deranged, unconstitutional and criminal, right?”
She said those words carry weight.
“When you’re using that kind of language, you are giving license to people to begin to take matters into their own hands,” she said.
Online and on camera, Trump has railed against federal judges who have ruled against him since his first term in office. In a video of an Easter lunch closed to the media that the White House briefly posted online before deleting it, Trump slammed the courts, saying judges who disagree with his policies are “stupid people.”
The president often singles out judges who rule against him, and in March posted a two-page missive criticizing the “courts,” which he said treat him “so unfairly.”
“Cases don’t matter, the Judge does,” he wrote.
Jones, now president of Dickinson College, spent nearly two decades in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. He said judges have been criticized since the nation’s founding, but the threats have taken a dark turn in recent years, and something must be done to better protect not just the judiciary as an institution, but also the lives of judges.
“But it’s another thing again to issue what I think is a dog whistle to that very small portion, but perhaps powerful portion, of the electorate that are unbalanced, that will take up arms and hurt or kill somebody, because they think in their twisted minds that they’re doing the work of a benefactor or vindicating some belief that they have,” he said.
“I think if we don’t do something at this point, people are really at risk, physical risk,” Jones said.
Salas said it’s important Americans understand that a judge must keep on blinders and look at the facts and the law, not at who has more money or power.
The two judges came from different backgrounds but shared the same answer about what can be done in the wake of these threats.
“We need a national dialogue,” Jones said. “Because judges are only going to be able to do so much.”
“A judge can’t convene a press conference in the lobby of the courthouse or on the steps of the courthouse. That just simply can’t happen at this point. They are uniquely cabined, in terms of what they can say publicly. They need help,” he said.
Salas said she believes that national conversation starts at the kitchen table. “I think it starts with how we treat each other at home,” Salas said. “How we treat each other, and how we treat neighbors and strangers, and everyone we come in contact.”
“I pray that we begin to see from our national leaders on down — that we begin to treat people the way we would want to be treated. The way we would want our children to be treated,” she said.
“Because at the end of the day, I will always be Daniel’s mom.”
