Daily Journal - Mar 14, 2005

Justice System Ponders Ways To Protect All
Security for Judges, Staff Competes With Other Budget Items -- Personal Information

        LOS ANGELES - The courthouse killings in Atlanta on Friday and the recent slaying of a federal judge's family members in Chicago have judicial officers, and the people who work with them, taking an even closer look at security.
        Despite weapons-screening systems that have effectively prevented recent violence inside some California courtrooms, bench officers and their staff members are realizing that they are still vulnerable.
        And they're looking for solutions.
        An Atlanta judge, a deputy sheriff and a court reporter died Friday when someone in custody apparently grabbed a sheriff's sergeant's gun and opened fire.
        Only 11 days earlier, a gunman shot and killed the husband and elderly mother of a federal judge in Chicago.

Lax Practices'

        These incidents come as reminders that violence isn't directed only at judges, and only in the courtroom.
        "It's making people reconsider how lax they may have gotten with their security practices," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John D. Lord said from his Long Beach courtroom. "My staff is talking about it."
        In San Francisco, judges are telling the Daily Journal they are concerned about security at the Civic Center Courthouse.
        "Right now, if you come into the building at 8 p.m. and on weekends, there is no security," one judge said on the condition he not be identified.
        Bailiffs no longer are staffing the courthouse at night or on weekends, the judge said.
        

One Bailiff Per Floor

        Eileen Hirst, chief of staff for San Francisco County Sheriff Michael Hennessey, confirmed the judge's complaint.
        "There used to be that we had 24-hour security there," Hirst said. "Then, funding was cut, and now there is no more."
        Judges also say that, because of reduced staffing, there often is only one bailiff per floor.
        "You have to make a date to get one," a judge said sarcastically.
        Sheriff's officials are saying there are now two deputies per floor.
        Chief Justice Ronald M. George says he's concerned that many of the state's courthouses lack adequate security: Either they don't have metal detectors, or they have the equipment but lack the personnel to man the devices.
        George said he happened to be visiting the downtown Los Angeles courthouse in 2000 just hours before Dr. Harry Zelig gunned down his estranged wife, Eileen, as they headed for a divorce hearing.
        George also pointed out that the 1999 shooting deaths of Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner H. George Taylor and his wife, Lynda Taylor, remain unsolved. They were gunned down in the driveway of their Rancho Cucamonga home.
        An issue on the minds of many judicial officers is how easily people can obtain their personal information. U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian is in charge of security for the federal court in the Roybal Building in downtown Los Angeles.
        Tevrizian says many judges are upset that their phone numbers, addresses and other personal identifiers are legally available through many commercial databases.
        "I'm not sure how many judges are aware of just how easy it is to get personal information on them from the Internet," Lord said. "Anyone who owns a home, their address will probably be fairly easy to find, unless you go through significant steps to shield the information."
        The president of the American Bar Association, Robert J. Grey Jr., is calling on Congress to extend permanently the law that allows certain information to be removed from the financial disclosure forms of federal judges.
        "That law is scheduled to expire this December," Grey said Friday.
        "Security must not be sacrificed to achieve economies," he said.
        Both Tevrizian and Lord have reason to be especially concerned: Both received death threats recently.
        "I've got two right now," Tevrizian said. "It goes with the territory. This is a very difficult job."
        Before becoming a judge, Lord was a deputy sheriff and a criminal prosecutor. Before that, he served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam.
        "I've been in a series of professions where it wasn't my job to make friends," he said. "If you do your job as a police officer, prosecutor or judge, you're not going to make a lot of friends."
        Lord recently received a death threat from a family member of a litigant in a civil case who told Lord's clerk that he feared his brother was going to commit suicide as a result of hardships caused by the judge's ruling.
        "He used the term, 'take him out,' but he said, 'I don't want you to think this is a death threat,'" Lord said.
        Lord immediately called on the sheriff's judicial services unit. Deputies there took the threat seriously.
        "The deputies got a picture of him and gave it to me in case the guy actually shows up," Lord said.
        Deputies in the unit say they offer special protection in the courtroom and even at a judge's home, if it becomes necessary.
        In his courtroom, Lord is confident his bailiff will handle any situation that comes along.
        He says he picked his bailiff because he is also an ex-Marine and, beyond that, the two have gone over various scenarios of what can go on in the courtroom. He recommends other bench officers make similar plans.
        "The bailiff does more than open doors and tell people where to sit," Lord said.
        Judge Alan S. Rosenfield in Lancaster also is a former deputy sheriff, but he's aware that, if there's violence in the courtroom, his first job is to head straight for his chambers and allow the deputy to focus on the disturbance.
        However, the deputy shouldn't have to worry about protecting the judge, too, Rosenfield said.
        "For us ex-deputy types, we have to overcome the urge to vault the bench and come to the bailiff's aid," he said.
        Retired Judge Cecil J. Mills is the director of court security for the Los Angeles Superior Court.
        Despite a system that has kept violence out of the courtrooms, Mills stresses that all employees must constantly be aware of what's going on around them.
        "We preach to our employees, 'Don't be brain-dead,'" he said. "We don't have enough police. Nobody would even remotely suggest that we ought to be picked up and taken to work."
        Mills said it's up to the each person to be aware of potential violence.
        "That's the key," he said. "It's a tough way to live, but it's a way to continue living."
        
        Daily Journal staff writers Donna Domino and Dennis Opatrny in San Francisco, Susan McRae in Los Angeles and Brent Kendall in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.