Half the time someone is dissatisfied with a judge’s decision. The normal resource is a resource. But in the caustic atmosphere of today’s politics, there is a real chance that the disgruntled party will threaten the judge. In the past five years, threats from federal judges have increased by 400%, to more than 4,000 last year – many of them death threats, sometimes ending in violence. Now, judges are breaking the tradition and publicly calling on lawmakers to provide more protection. One of the strongest voices is federal judge Esther Salas. Last July, she was at home in New Jersey, in the basement with her son Daniel, cleaning up after her 20th birthday party, when a man disguised as a FedEx driver stopped outside.
Esther Salas: Danny turned around and said, “Let’s keep talking. I love talking to you, mom.” And it was at that very moment that the doorbell rang. And before I could stop him, he just went up the stairs. The next thing I hear is a boom. It looked like a mini-bomb. And then I hear “no”. And then I hear “boom, boom, boom”. And I shouted, “What’s going on?” When I got up there, it was something that no mother should see.
Daniel lying bleeding by the door; Mark, her husband, kneeling down holding his side. Daniel was barely clinging to life.
Esther Salas: I – I didn’t even know what to do. I remember picking up his shirt and seeing the bullet hole. You know, we were shouting, “Daniel, hold on” and “don’t leave us”. And then, as I think about that day, I just realize that I was watching my only son disappear.
Daniel died on the way to the hospital. Mark is lucky to be alive.
Bill Whitaker: How badly was he hurt?
Esther Salas: Mark was shot three times – in the right chest, left abdomen, in the arm.
A close-knit family, they called themselves the three musketeers. Judge Salas told us that Daniel, a sophomore in college, was the center of their universe. From his wounds, the FBI said, it looked like Daniel had tried to block the sniper.
Bill Whitaker: When did you realize that the attack was for you?
Esther Salas: It wasn’t until the FBI interrogations. They looked at the case inside and out and said to me, “Madam, you were the target. He wanted to catch you.”
The sniper was Roy Den Hollander, a 72-year-old lawyer. He harbored a deep hatred for women and left behind a bitter manifest. He accused Judge Salas of being, citing, a “lazy Latina”, dragging her feet in her lawsuit. The police found his body the next day, he had killed himself. The FBI found out that he had killed another lawyer a week earlier. So he went to hunt down Judge Salas.
Esther Salas: He obviously knew where I lived. He knew my routes to work. He knew the church we attended. He had Daniel’s school. He knew baseball games. Just a complete job about me and my family.
Bill Whitaker: The information he obtained, all from legal sources?
Esther Salas: All open sources, they call it.
We met Judge Salas outside his home six months after Daniel’s murder. She told us that her husband needs additional surgery. The house was sold. Twenty years of wonderful memories, she told us, and one that is painful.
Esther Salas in the YouTube video: We are living the worst nightmare of all parents, making arrangements to bury – to bury our only son, Daniel.
Last August, in a highly unusual move for a federal judge, Judge Salas made a personal appeal to 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 aim to track us.
Since Daniel’s funeral, Judge Salas has become an advocate for federal legislation to clean up personal information from Internet judges. His mission became more urgent when the FBI discovered a second cabinet in New Jersey belonging to his son’s murderer.
Bill Whitaker: What did they find? What was in the closet?
Esther Salas: They found another weapon, a Glock, plus ammunition. But the most worrying thing they found was a manila folder with an investigation into Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Bill Whitaker: Supreme Court Judge Sotomayor?
Esther Salas: Yes. Creepy.
Bill Whitaker: What do you think when you find out that a Supreme Court judge was on your list?
Esther Salas: More than on the list, in the crosshairs. They had her favorite restaurants, where she worked, her friends.
Tonight is the first time that the plot has been revealed.
Esther Salas: Who knows what could have happened? But we need to understand that judges are at risk. We need to understand that we put ourselves in great danger every day for doing our job. This fact has to wake us up.
Judge Salas told us that she never dreamed that she would put her family in danger when she took office in 2011.
The last update of judicial security was 15 years ago – after Chicago judge Joan Lefkow returned home one night and found her husband and mother shot to death by a disgruntled plaintiff.
The new legislation, to be passed by the Senate, calls for more than $ 250 million for home security and an additional 1,000 deputy marshals. This would erase a long list of personal data online – such as home address, driver’s license and property tax records.
Bill Whitaker: You chose to be a judge. And when you become a public person, don’t you have to give up some of your personal data in the name of liability?
Esther Salas: You are right, I chose to become a civil servant. And if someone has problems with what I have decided in a specific case, they can appeal. If someone is upset, the address of the court, you know, is known to everyone. Come to the court. But why do you need to come to my house?
We can’t show it, but US delegates now provide 24-hour security for Judge Salas. She told us that judges are increasingly threatened online. Last year, there were 4,200 threats against federal judges. She read some of them to us.
Esther Salas: “We”, he quotes, “we must start killing these corrupt politicians and judges and their families”, concludes the quote. Another, “The judge is a traitor and is condemned to death”.
Bill Whitaker: And this since Daniel’s death?
Esther Salas: This is since Daniel’s murder in this very house. Another only in Mississippi. Quote: “I’m going to kill you. I just want to take the gun and come over there and blow all their brains out.”
But perhaps no judge in the country has felt the heat of online threats more than US senior district judge James Robart.
Emotions were already high when Judge Robart temporarily blocked former President Trump’s first travel ban, preventing some Muslim travelers. Critics posted their home phone number and address online. But nothing prepared him for the hateful tsunami when President Trump used his Twitter lectern to dismiss him as a “supposed judge”.
James Robart: When you call someone a supposed judge, what you do is attack the judiciary. You may not even want to convey that message, but it is the message that your 40 million Twitter followers have taken away, that you were never allowed to issue that decision.
Death threats flooded. Then President Trump tweeted again.
Bill Whitaker: If I remember correctly, he also said to blame you if there was a terrorist attack on the country?
James Robart: People understood that I was somehow giving permission for their families to be in danger. And then the tone of several messages became “you must be stopped”.
Bill Whitaker: What did you think of that? When does the president attack you?
James Robart: I thought he had a right to attack my decision. I don’t think criticizing a judge is acceptable. I recognize that there is a dispute about this. There is no doubt the moment you start talking about “I will kill you” or “I will hurt you”, or more importantly for me, “I will hurt your family”. This is beyond the line and cannot be tolerated.
Judge Robart was bombarded with 40,000 messages. 1,100 were serious enough to be investigated. The death threats were so great that US agents set up camp around the judge’s house.
James Robart: The idea of needing a, you know, sniffer dog to go into a restaurant before we can have lunch, affects you, but you just try, you know, not to let it bother you.
Bill Whitaker: Did it really happen?
James Robart: (laughs) Yes. If you want to know how to be really unpopular with restaurant owners, show up with your dog, who runs around barking at the restaurant. And a number of US marshals that are noticeable.
Bill Whitaker: You are laughing now, but I think you didn’t see it funny at the time?
James Robart: (sigh) No, I didn’t.
Then, federal investigators discovered something more sinister. Thousands of threats that appeared to be from the Americans – were actually from Russia, part of Vladimir Putin’s long game to fragment American democracy.
Suzanne Spaulding: If Putin can undermine a significant segment of the population’s willingness to accept a court decision, it can cause chaos in this country.
Suzanne Spaulding commanded major cyber security operations for the Democratic and Republican governments. She told us that Russia undermines the justice system by spreading suspicions among some Americans that the judges are in favor.
Bill Whitaker: What did Judge Robart do to put himself in Russia’s sights?
Suzanne Spaulding: They attacked you, your decision reflecting your personal political preferences, as opposed to following the rule of law. This leads people to conclude that it is appropriate to make threats of violence. And as we saw in the tragic case of Judge Salas, to actually carry out a violent attack.
Bill Whitaker: How big of a threat do you think this is?
Suzanne Spaulding: You know, I think we experienced that on the 6th of January.
Spaulding told us that since the siege of the Capitol, there has been more pressure on police officers to determine which online threats can turn into physical attacks. Take the example of an Alabama man who answered the call online with a truckload of weapons and a hand-scrawled list of targets – the second from the top, an Indiana judge.
Bill Whitaker: So how do you respond to people who are going to say what I say online, even if it is aggressive, it is my First Amendment, right?
Suzanne Spaulding: So you have the First Amendment’s right to express your opinion, even if it is an unpopular opinion. But threats of violence, incitement to violence, are things that law enforcement authorities can legitimately examine, especially when they are against our public officials.
Judge Salas lives with these threats. But when the court reopens after the pandemic, she told us that Daniel would like it to continue.
Bill Whitaker: Will you be worried when you enter this court again?
Esther Salas: No, we have changed forever. You know, Mark and I are – we’re different people today, unfortunately. But when it comes to what I do at the bank, no, it doesn’t … I … it won’t change. I am not going to let Mr. Hollander take that away from me – my integrity, my work ethic and my pride. No. He will not accept this.
Produced by Heather Abbott. Associate producer, LaCrai Mitchell. Transmission associate, Emilio Almonte. Edited by Craig Crawford.