Open Season on the Judiciary

As threats and attacks rise, some judges begin packing pistols

Many Honolulans were unhappy last month after Circuit Judge Harold Shintaku, 54, threw out a jury's murder verdict and allowed Defendant Charles K. Stevens, a notorious criminal, to go free. Some 300 people rallied downtown in protest. The judge responded with a 20-page report explaining his action, but the city's most popular disc jockey told his audience: "Shintaku can take that report and shove it up his-nose." Then came news that Judge Shintaku had been found by relatives battered and dazed at his beachfront cottage. After doctors performed brain surgery for three hours and tended to Shintaku's broken collarbone, they predicted that he would be sidelined for a year.

The incident is a brutal sign of the growing occupational and safety hazards of work on the bench. Though there are few figures on threats against judges, the U.S. Marshals Service, which provides security for the federal bench, says that cases serious enough to warrant a personal guard rose from 58 in fiscal 1980 to 88 in 1981.

Often the threats are made by prisoners seeking revenge against the judge who heard their cases. A rising number have been coming, however, from violent groups on trial, including the Hell's Angels and the Puerto Rican liberation group F.A.L.N. Frank Battisti, chief judge of the federal district court in Cleveland, has received his death threats from members of the public. The first came in 1974 after he dismissed charges against eight Ohio National Guardsmen involved in the Kent State killings. He won more enemies when he ordered desegregation of local schools and when he directed the nearly all-white suburb of Parma to build low-and moderate-income housing. For the past five years, Battisti has had around-the-clock protection from two U.S. marshals.

The most notorious recent example of terrorism against the judiciary was the murder 2 1/2 years ago of John Wood, a federal district judge in Texas. He was gunned down outside his home, perhaps because of the harsh sentences he routinely handed down in drug cases. It was the first assassination of a federal judge in over 100 years. An investigation has yielded no indictments for the murder, but one source reports that the trail has become "hot" and may produce a defendant within the next few months.

Though judges are more vulnerable outside the security of the courtroom, they can no longer feel totally safe while sitting on the bench. Last August Lindsay Arthur, 64, senior district judge in Minneapolis, was presiding at the arraignment of Richard Martin, 32. Suddenly, Martin tried to escape. Finding the exit blocked, he headed for Arthur. Martin punched the judge in the face, drawing blood and sending him sprawling. Last year in a Chicago courtroom, Defendant Wayne Ellis grabbed a revolver from a policeman's holster, aimed it at Judge William Prendergast and pulled the trigger three times. Fortunately, the gun was empty.

In an effort to combat courtroom attacks, the U.S. Marshals Service and other security forces are trying everything from metal detectors and alarm systems to bomb-sniffing dogs. A San Francisco courtroom custom-designed for sensational trials has bullet-resistant glass between the spectators and the court. A few judges in places like Fort Lauderdale and Kansas City, however, have begun taking the law into their own hands. In Old West style, they show up for work packing pistols.

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