Escalating Threats Force Federal Judges to Build Safe Rooms

A report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a self-described nonpartisan law and policy institute that also engages in legal and policy advocacy, found federal judges are facing unprecedented levels of threats, harassment, and intimidation. The analysis, based on interviews with 35 sitting and retired federal judges whose appointments span every president since Jimmy Carter, revealed some judges have taken extraordinary measures to protect themselves and their families.

One unidentified federal district judge described receiving more than 700 threatening phone calls and intense online harassment following a case involving the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. After an online post of their home floor plan was made public, the jurist spent substantial personal funds building a safe room and fortifying their home. The judge also began varying travel routes and notified their child’s school to increase active-shooter training.

“I can’t leave my house at the same time or take the same routes,” the judge said. “When someone gets behind me, I just pull over and let them pass.”

Federal judges reported a 57% increase in “security incidents of significant concern” during fiscal year 2025, with similar growth expected for fiscal 2026. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan told Congress that threats against justices are projected to rise by 38% this year after increasing 25% in 2025.

Several judges interviewed by the Brennan Center attributed the deteriorating security environment to increasingly heated rhetoric from political leaders. Senior U.S. District Judge William Young of Massachusetts stated, “In 40 years on the bench, I have never encountered an executive branch so overtly hostile to the federal judiciary — top to bottom.”

Young added, “What is new — what is genuinely new — is having the executive branch itself be overtly hostile to the federal judiciary,” citing “public disparagement of judges, baseless conclusions, and attacks that would have been unthinkable in prior administrations.”

The report also cited remarks by Democrats. U.S. District Judge Esther Salas recalled Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warning Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh at a 2020 abortion access rally that they had “released the whirlwind” and would “pay the price.” Schumer retracted the comments the following day, stating they “did not come out the way I intended,” but one retired judge described the remarks as inappropriate.

The Brennan Center recommended that Congress fully fund judicial security requests, strengthen protections for judges’ personal information, and establish a commission to examine whether responsibility for protecting federal judges should be housed within the judicial branch.