Federal Judges Discuss Personal Threats, Security Concerns, 10 am Aug. 30

Federal judges will release new data on threats and attacks directed at federal administrative law judges and will discuss concerns by judges about the level of safety in federal courtrooms where Social Security and immigration cases are heard at a Newsmakers press conference at 10 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 30, in the Zenger Room.

Randall Frye, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges and a federal judge with the Social Security Administration based in Charlotte, N.C., and Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges and a federal immigration judge in the Department of Justice based in San Francisco, will participate in the event.

The judges will describe working conditions in their courts and make recommendations on how to improve security.

Threats on judicial employees have become so commonplace that the U.S. Marshal’s Service has opened a clearinghouse to address the situation. Between March and August of 2009, 28 threats were recorded on Social Security offices that handle disability hearings. During the same period, 10 individual judges who hear disability claims were threatened.

Most Social Security and immigration judges do not have a bailiff or a security guard in their courtrooms, and many facilities are only protected by private security guards.

-- Jamie Horwitz, [email protected]