Judiciary Seeks New Judgeships and Enhanced Security

The Judicial Conference of the United States—the Judiciary’s policy-making body—recently proposed 79 new judgeships for courts across the country and initiatives to improve both personal security and courtroom security.

According to the conference’s news release, “The 26-member Judicial Conference is the policy-making body for the federal court system. By statute, the Chief Justice of the United States serves as its presiding officer and its members are the chief judges of the 13 courts of appeals, a district judge from each of the 12 geographic circuits, and the chief judge of the Court of International Trade.”

The Judicial Conference is requesting that Congress create two new court of appeals judgeships and 77 new district judgeships. The purpose of creating the additional judgeships is to better handle the influx of cases in district courts. The caseload had risen 47 percent  by the end of FY 2019 since 1990.  

The conference also continued their support for enhanced security for federal judges. Federal Judge Esther Salas’ son, Daniel Anderl, was slain at their family home in New Jersey last year after a litigant found their home address on the internet. The Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act was introduced in Congress last year with bipartisan support.

Judge David McKeague, who is chair of the Judicial Conference’s Judicial Security Committee, explained, “These security initiatives are necessary to keep judges, their families and staffs, and the public visiting our courthouses safe. We need to act on the lessons we learned from events of the past year.”

In both chambers of Congress, several lawmakers support enhanced security for federal judges. Representative Michael Quigley (D-IL) explained, “Just as it did for the legislative branch, the insurrection on the Capitol on January 6 raised some serious concerns about the safety and security of our hard working judges and staff, and physical needs in and outside the courtroom as we saw with the tragic shooting at the federal judge’s home.”

The Judicial Conference supported increasing funding for the U.S. Marshals Service in FY 2021 to replace outdated security systems in judges’ homes. With an increase in civil unrest over the past year leading to attacks on 53 courthouses around the country and the Capitol riot, the conference will be requesting additional funding to address security vulnerabilities.

Judge McKeague said, “These incidents demonstrated the increasing threat to our courthouses and their occupants. Our security needs require urgent attention to ensure that these types of things don’t happen again.”