Half the time someone is not satisfied with a judge’s sentence. The normal resource is a resource. But in the caustic environment of current politics, there is a real possibility that the disgruntled party will threaten the judge. In the past five years, threats from federal judges have risen 400 percent to more than 4,000 last year, many of them death threats, sometimes ending in violence. Now, judges are breaking with tradition and publicly asking lawmakers to provide more protection. One of the strongest voices is Federal Judge Esther Salas. Last July he was at home in New Jersey, in the basement with his son Daniel, cleaning up after his twentieth birthday party, when a man disguised as a FedEx driver came out.
Esther Salas: Danny turned and said, “Let’s keep talking. I love talking to you, Mom.” And it was at that exact moment when the bell rang. And before I could stop him, he just climbed the stairs. The next thing I hear is “boom”. It just looked like a mini bomb. And then I feel “no”. And then I hear “boom, boom, boom”. And I just yelled, “What’s up?” When I got upstairs, it was something no mother should ever see.
Daniel lying bleeding through the door; Mark, her husband, on his knees holding to the side. Daniel was barely clinging to life.
Esther Salas: I didn’t even know what to do. I remember grabbing his shirt and seeing the bullet hole. You know, we were yelling, “Daniel hold on” and “don’t leave us.” And then, as I think about that day, I realize I was watching my only son fade away.
Daniel died on the way to the hospital. Mark is lucky to be alive.
Bill Whitaker: How seriously was he injured?
Esther Salas: Mark received three shots to the right chest, left abdomen and arm.
A very close-knit family, the three musketeers were called. Judge Salas told us that Daniel, a sophomore at the university, was the center of his universe. According to the FBI, from his injuries, it appears that Daniel had tried to block the army.
Bill Whitaker: When did you realize the attack was for you?
Esther Salas: It wasn’t until the FBI debriefings. They had stared at this case inside and out, telling me “ma’am, you were the target. He wanted to get you.”
The shooter was Roy Den Hollander, a 72-year-old lawyer. He harbored a deep hatred of women and left behind a bitter manifesto. He accused Judge Salas of being, for example, a “lazy Latina,” dragging her feet over her lawsuit. The next day, police found his body, he himself had been shot. The FBI found out he had killed another lawyer a week earlier. Then he went to look for Judge Salas.
Esther Salas: I knew where I obviously lived. I knew my routes to work. I knew the church we attended. He had Daniel’s school. He knew baseball games. Just a complete work on me and my family.
Bill Whitaker: The information you got, all from legal sources?
Esther Salas: Everyone open source, they say.
We met Judge Salas away from home six months after Daniel’s murder. She told us that her husband needs additional surgery. The house has been sold. Twenty years of wonderful memories, he told us, and that is intriguing.
Esther Salas in the YouTube video: We live the worst nightmare of all parents, preparing to bury, bury our only child, Daniel.
Last August, in a very unusual move for a federal judge, Judge Salas filed a personal petition with lawmakers on YouTube.
Esther Salas in the YouTube video: We may not be able to prevent something like this from happening again, but we can make it difficult for those who point at us to follow us.
Since Daniel’s funeral, Judge Salas has become a crusader of federal law to remove personal information from judges on the Internet. His mission became more urgent when the FBI discovered a second closet in New Jersey that belonged to his son’s killer.
Bill Whitaker: What did they find? What was in the closet?
Esther Salas: They found another weapon, a Glock, more ammunition. But the most troubling thing they found was a manila folder with a work on Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Bill Whitaker: Supreme Court Judge Sotomayor?
Esther Salas: Yes. Creepy.
Bill Whitaker: What do you think when you find that a Supreme Court judge was on your list?
Esther Salas: More than on your list, in sight. They had their favorite restaurants, where he worked, their friends.
Tonight is the first time this plot is revealed.
Esther Salas: Who knows what might have happened? But we must understand that judges are at risk. We must understand that we put ourselves in great danger every day to do our job. This fact must awaken us.
Judge Salas told us he never dreamed he would endanger his family when he swore in 2011.
The last judicial security update came 15 years ago, after Chicago Judge Joan Lefkow returned home one night and found her husband and mother shot dead by a disgruntled plaintiff.
The new legislation, which will be passed by the Senate, seeks more than $ 250 million for home security and 1,000 more vice ministers. It would delete a long list of personal data online, such as a home address, driver’s license, and property tax records.
Bill Whitaker: You chose to be a judge. And when you become a public figure, don’t you have to give up some of your personal data in order to be held accountable?
Esther Salas: You’re right, I chose to be a civil servant. And if anyone has any issues with what I have ruled on in a particular case, they can appeal. If someone is upset, the court address, you know, is known to everyone. Come to court. But why do you need to come to my house?
We can’t show you that, but U.S. commissioners are now offering 24-hour security to Judge Salas. He told us that judges are increasingly threatened online. Last year there were 4,200 threats against federal judges. He read us some of them.
Esther Salas: “We,” he quotes, “we need to start killing these corrupt politicians and judges and their families,” the quote ends. Another, “The judge is a traitor and has a death sentence.”
Bill Whitaker: And that’s since Daniel’s death?
Esther Salas: Since Daniel’s murder in this same house. Another only in Mississippi. Quote: “I’ll kill you. I just want to grab the gun and go down there and blow up their whole brains.”
But perhaps no judge in the country has felt the warmth of online threats more than U.S. District Judge James Robart.
Emotions were already underway when Judge Robart temporarily blocked former President Trump’s first travel ban, banning some Muslim travelers. Critics posted his phone number and address online. But nothing prepared him for the hate tsunami when President Trump used Twitter’s bully pulpit to disparage him as a “supposed judge”.
James Robart: When you call someone the so-called judge, what you do is attack the judiciary. You may not have even wanted to convey this message, but this is the message that your 40 million Twitter followers withdrew, that you were never authorized to issue this decision.
Death threats were flooded. Then President Trump tweeted again.
Bill Whitaker: If I remember, he also said he would blame you if there was a terrorist attack in the country?
James Robart: People took it because it somehow gave permission for their families to be put in danger. And then the tone of some of the messages turned into “must stop.”
Bill Whitaker: What do you think of that? When does the president attack you?
James Robart: I thought I had a right to challenge my decision. I don’t think it’s acceptable to criticize a judge. I recognize that there is a dispute about that. There’s no controversy the moment you start talking about “I’ll kill you” or “I’ll hurt you,” or what’s more important to me, “I’ll hurt your family.” This is above the line and cannot be tolerated.
Judge Robart was bombarded with 40,000 messages. 1,100 were serious enough to be investigated. There were so many death threats that U.S. commissioners set up camp around the judge’s house.
James Robart: The idea of needing a dog that smells of bombs to go to a restaurant before you can eat impacts you, but just try, you know, that doesn’t bother you.
Bill Whitaker: Did this really happen?
James Robart: (laughs) Yes. If you want to know how to be really unpopular with restaurant owners, compare it to your dog, who roams the barking restaurant. And some American marshals who stand out.
Bill Whitaker: Laughing now, but I guess you don’t see the humor in that moment?
James Robart: (sighing) No, no.
Then federal investigators discovered something more nefarious. Thousands of threats that appeared to be from Americans were actually from Russia, part of a long game by Vladimir Putin to split American democracy.
Suzanne Spaulding: If Putin can undermine a significant segment of the population’s willingness to accept a court decision, it could cause chaos in that country.
Suzanne Spaulding led major cybersecurity operations for both Democratic and Republican administrations. He told us that Russia undermines the judicial system by justifying the suspicions of some Americans that judges are partisan.
Bill Whitaker: What did Judge Robart do to get into Russia’s hair?
Suzanne Spaulding: He was attacked, his decision reflected his personal political preferences, rather than following the rule of law. And that leads people to conclude that it is appropriate to make threats of violence. And as we saw in Judge Salas’s tragic case, a violent attack actually took place.
Bill Whitaker: What threat do you think it is?
Suzanne Spaulding: You know, I think we tasted it on January 6th.
Spaulding has told us since the siege of the Capitol that there is more pressure on law enforcement to determine what online threats can turn into physical attacks. Let’s take the example of an Alabama man who answered the call online with a gun truck and a hand-scribbled hit list, the second from the top, an Indiana judge.
Bill Whitaker: So how do you respond to people saying that what I say online, even if it’s aggressive, is my first amendment, right?
Suzanne Spaulding: Therefore, you have the right to the first amendment to express your opinion, even if it is an unpopular opinion. But threats of violence, incitement to violence, are things that law enforcement can legitimately examine, especially when they are against our public officials.
Judge Salas lives with these threats. But when the court reopened after the pandemic, he told us that Daniel would like him to continue.
Bill Whitaker: Will you worry when you re-enter this courtroom?
Esther Salas: No, we have changed forever. You know, Mark and I are, today we are sadly different. But as far as I’m on the bench, no, that’s not, I am, that’s not going to change. I will not let Mr. Hollander take this away from me: my integrity, my work ethic, and my pride. No, he won’t take it.
Produced by Heather Abbott. Associate producer, LaCrai Mitchell. Partner of the broadcast, Emilio Almonte. Edited by Craig Crawford.