Sitting in his chambers on the morning of March 11, Judge Rowland Barnes had no way of knowing that his life would soon be cut short by an inmate who was able to overpower a female deputy at the Fulton County, Georgia, Courthouse and flee with her gun.  Within 24 hours, Brian Nichols had murdered the judge, a court stenographer, a sheriff's deputy and a federal agent who he encountered during his escape into a different county.

Nichols' killing spree put courtrooms across the country on alert and sparked a national conversation among judicial officials about how they can make the country's courthouses safer - - for both staff and the public.  With the Atlanta tragedies fresh on everyone's minds and another event involving the murder of the family of a federal judge in Chicago making recent headlines, agencies are joining forces to take a closer look at court security in the United States.

"I think, obviously, it has brought the problem to light to a lot of different people," said Monroe County, Georgia, Sheriff John Cary Bittick, who serves on the National Sheriffs' Association's Executive Committee.

Bittick will join some of his fellow sheriffs from across the country and a variety of other court professionals at a summit in Washington, D.C. next month to discuss the issue of court security.  The meeting is being hosted by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), which received a grant from the Department of Justice to gather key stakeholders around the same table and get them talking about court security.

"When the tragedies happened, we said we wanted to bring all of these different agencies together," said Lorri Montgomery, Communications Manager for the NCSC.  "What we are trying to do is to identify the essential elements that any court can put in place to make the court personnel and, of course, the public safer."

According to Montgomery, the NCSC, with assistance from agencies such as the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators, has been working with judges from across the country to examine the issue of court security for the past few years.  In fact, just last month, their research was finalized and the NCSC published the "Essential Ten Elements for Effective Courtroom Safety and Security Planning".

The 10 areas NCSC identified as being vital to court security included:

* Operational Security: Standard Operating Procedures;
* Facility Security Planning: The Self-Audit Survey of Court Facilities;
* Emergency Preparedness and Response: Continuity of Operations;
* Disaster Recovery: Essential Elements of a Plan;
* Threat Assessment;
* Incident Reporting;
* Funding;
* Security Equipment and Costs;
* Resources and Partnerships; and
* New Courthouse Design.

These points will be used as a starting place for the court professionals who will meet at the summit in the nation's capital on April 21 to discuss how to make improvements to court security, said John Ramsey, Director of Association Services at NCSC.  But those 10 areas are only meant to get the discussion off the ground, he said. 

According to Ramsey, it is the people attending the gathering who have the true knowledge of what works in terms of court security and what doesn't.  This meetings gives those different parties and chance to exchange ideas, he said.

"Those 10 points are not the answers to anything," said Ramsey.  "There's more information out there."

The goal of this first meeting is for attendees to form some working groups to tackle the various issues associated with court security, Ramsey said.  These groups will essentially be given an "assignment" or a particular issue to mull over and the reconvene at a meeting in a few months to, hopefully, present some solutions to the problems they evaluated.

The value of having so many different minds - judges, court administrators, district attorneys, sheriffs, police chiefs, court security personnel, court reporters and others from across the country - in the same room is that some courts may have already faced certain security issues and developed viable solutions to their problems, Ramsey said. 

"We want to hear from the stakeholders out there in the field," Ramsey said.  "We don't want to reinvent the wheel.  We want to put [the information that already exists] together so people can actually use it."

While Ramsey said that he is not sure exactly what will emerge from this summit, he hopes that, in the end, the NCSC will be able to compile information gleaned during these meetings and distribute it to agencies to assist them in designing or improving their court security policies and procedures.

"We want to have some real tangible work product when we are done with this," he said.

While the NCSC is pulling people together to examine court security on a national level, some states are also looking at what they can do locally to make their courthouses safer for staff and the public.

Keeping a Close Eye on Court Security in New York

"After the recent tragedies in Chicago with the federal judge and in Atlanta with the state judge and the other court employees, we thought that it would be appropriate to look at our procedures again," said Ronald Younkins, Chief of Operations for Office of Court Administration in New York.

Younkins said that although New York has a great deal of confidence in its court security systems and staff, it still seemed like a good time for the agency to take a closer look at its policies and procedures to determine if there is any room for improvement.

"It's not that we see, at this point, any major problems, [but] we are always on the lookout for issues," said Younkins.

To get some dialogue started about court security in New York, the Office of Court Administration formed a nine-member task force in mid-March.  Additionally, there will be a number of people serving on working groups associated with the task force, said Younkins, who is co-chairing it, along with Lawrence Marks, the Office's Administrative Director.

According to Younkins, the working groups, which will include both people working inside the courts and out, will each be charged with focusing on a specific area of court security.  For example, one group will be looking at judicial threats, he said.

"We already have in place [a] whole system [to deal with judicial threats], but we're going to take an opportunity to look at that process to see if there are any ways that we can make improvements," Younkins said.

The task force and the working groups will also be addressing training, screening equipment and transportation issues, he added.

"We are basically looking at the procedures across the board and seeing if there are any issues that need to be addressed there," Younkins said. 

While Younkins believes that the situation that erupted in Fulton County would probably not happen in New York, because of the types of holsters the court officers wear and a policy that dictates that the officer closest to an inmate can not carry a firearm when escorting him, he said that the agency still has some concerns that were sparked by the Atlanta event.

Since Nichols escaped inside the courthouse, Younkins said that his agency will re-examine its lockdown policies and procedures to make sure that all court staff are trained and understand the appropriate course of action for locking down buildings.

He also said that the task force and the working groups will take a closer look at duress alarms in court buildings. 

"We are looking just to make sure, number one, [that] they are operating [and that] the system is not outdated and malfunctioning," said Younkins.

Younkins said that although the incidents in Georgia and Illinois have heightened awareness about the issue of court security, judges and court personnel in New York are not fearful.  But, still, he said, the task force hopes to move forward quickly to produce some recommendations as to how court security can become even tighter in New York.

Likewise, the NCSC hopes that its summit will prove to be a success and help to improve safety in courtrooms across the U.S.

Resources:

NCSC http://www.ncsconline.org/

Bittick (478) 994-7048

Younkins (212) 428-2126