Charlie Kirk's assassination has reignited worries about judges' security.
A sharp rise in threats against the judiciary has made concern over political violence a constant drumbeat, from state courts to the Supreme Court.
But the fatal shooting of the prominent conservative activist has injected a new urgency into the conversation.
"I think it is a sign of a culture that has, where political discourse has soured beyond control and something that we need to really pull back," Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Monday.
Most immediately, Kirk's assassination has added a layer the ongoing funding battle in Congress as a Sept. 30 deadline approaches.
House Republicans unveiled the text of a stopgap package Tuesday to keep the government funded through Nov. 21. It adds $28 million for the Supreme Court to protect the justices and $30 million to the U.S. Marshals Service.
It comes after the White House asked Congress to include additional security funding for the executive and judicial branches in a stopgap package.
However, the boost leaves unaddressed broader funding issues, particularly for the security of lower judges, who don't normally receive around-the-clock details.
More than 500 threats have been reported against federal judges since last October, surpassing previous years, according to recently released data from the Marshals Service.
"It's clearly a brave new world when it comes to security, judges included," said U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, chair of the U.S. Judicial Conference's executive committee.
The conference serves as the federal judiciary's policymaking arm and comprises judges from across the country. Sutton spoke to reporters after the conference's biannual meeting Tuesday, at which judges were warned that the judiciary's budget crisis could deepen without a full-year appropriations deal in Congress.
U.S. Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve, the conference's budget chair, said Congress had consulted the judiciary "a little bit ago" for its requests in the event of a stopgap measure. St. Eve said the judiciary requested additional security funding.
Despite the additional funds, it's the full-year appropriations bill in the House that contains the complete judiciary security request of $892 million.
The judiciary has increasingly sounded the alarm about security amid the heightened threat environment.
A disgruntled lawyer murdered the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey in 2020. Two years later, an armed man showed up outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home and said he wanted to kill the justice. And judges have also reported receiving pizzas ordered to their homes — oftentimes ordered in the name of Salas's son, she said earlier this year.
Just last week, prosecutors indicted a man for allegedly printing a 236-page manifesto at a public library in Minnesota titled, "How to Kill a Federal Judge," one of the latest in a steady drumbeat of cases.
FBI Director Kash Patel said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday that his agency had 35 open investigations into threats against the judiciary, 17 of those against federal judges.
"We are working up those cases and referring to them to prosecution where we can meet the threshold for evidence," Patel told Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.)
Before the shooting, former federal judges had already been collaborating behind the scenes for months on a rare, joint statement warning that threats are endangering judges and their families.
They agreed to release it on Constitution Day — today — only for Kirk's assassination to reignite the national conversation days earlier.
"Since 1787 our Constitution has stood firm. Now so must we all," reads the letter signed by the 46 former judges, organized by the group Keep our Republic.
We sat down with two of the signatories, one appointed by a Democratic president, the other a Republican president, to discuss.
"I would never characterize any anything about what happened to Charlie Kirk yesterday as providing a lesson of some kind other than I hope it shakes enough people up to think and reflect on just the level of rhetoric that so many people are engaged in and toning it down. Turn down the rhetoric," Philip Pro, who was appointed by former President Reagan and heard cases on Nevada's federal district court until 2015, told us.
Pro recalled marshals living in motor homes outside his home on a "couple of occasions," but he cautioned it was not like what judges see today.
"We know we have in our society, people who are easily driven to action by political rhetoric, so that creates a danger for judges," said Bob Cindrich, who former President Clinton appointed to a federal judgeship in Pennsylvania. Cindrich resigned from the bench in 2004.
"But in the end, the biggest threat to the future of the Republic is none of that," Cindrich said. "It is we, the people. It is apathy."
As the broader conversation moves forward in the judiciary, an update on the prosecution of Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Kirk's shooting:
Robinson, 22, was hit with seven charges in Utah on Tuesday, including aggravated murder. His first court appearance was Tuesday afternoon.
New details about the alleged crimes emerged in the charging documents against Robinson, which you can read here.
Utah County Attorney General Jeff Gray said prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty, a decision he made "independently" despite being aware of Trump's desire to see capital punishment pursued.
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