As Maryland police continued their search for man suspected of fatally shooting a Maryland judge who had awarded custody of the suspect’s children to his wife on the day of the killing, the safety of judges and other public servants come to mind.
WTOP anchors Shawn Anderson and Anne Kramer spoke to Jason DeLoach, president of the Maryland State Bar Association on the dangers judges face as they carry out their public duties.
Read the conversation below:
Shawn Anderson: Well, just how safe are judges in these times? Joining us now Jason DeLoach. He is the president of the Maryland State Bar Association. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.
Jason DeLoach: Glad to be here.
Shawn Anderson: Your reaction when you heard about this last night?
Jason DeLoach: I was stunned. It’s not every day you hear about something like this, but to have a dedicated public servant like this judge, who gave so much to his community, and our judges all over the state and all over the country. It’s deeply disturbing.
Anne Kramer: Jason, this is not uncommon, though, is what I’ve been finding from the research I’ve been doing today. When it comes to either threats against judges, as we’ve heard in the election cases involving former President Trump, but also when it comes to these domestic cases. It seems to be popping up more and more. Give some perspective to us into all of this.
Jason DeLoach: Well, the domestic cases are absolute powder kegs for judges. Ok. It’s really, really a tough situation for judges. All they’re trying to do is to make sure … in a lot of cases, they’re doing the best interests of the child, and they’re trying to do their job. But with social media, with the state of undiagnosed mental illness, judges are … they’re in danger. And it’s time for people to understand the risk associated with these cases that are coming before these judges.
Shawn Anderson: As Anne mentioned, we’ve seen the instances. We had District Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey, a federal judge, her son was shot and killed. We had Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a man threatened him at his home last year. Those are high profile judges. And when we get to the state and local level, are we at the point where those judges maybe need some added police protection as we go along?
Jason DeLoach: Absolutely. And it’s always comes down to dollars and cents. But when one judge when we lose one judge or any public servant on circumstances like this, there’s a great chance that it’s going to happen again. The threats are always going to be there and with the influence of social media and again the state of mental illness in our country, this is something that we’re, unfortunately, unless we do something, we’re gonna have something like this happening again. And the hope is that a tragedy of this kind, that something good comes out of it. And one of the things that we need to try to look at very seriously is giving these judges some sort of security. And as members of the bar, we also have to understand, if we’re representing someone who may be a bit unstable, there needs to be a mechanism where lawyers can report this without violating some ethical rule or something like that. Lawyers need to be comfortable to be able to report something like this. So it’s not an easy solution to it, but the low-hanging fruit here is to try to find the funding.
Anne Kramer: Jason, we appreciate your insight and perspective on this. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Thank you. Jason DeLoach is president of the Maryland State Bar Association.
