Threats Against the Judiciary Are Worse Than They’ve Ever Been. These Judges Know Why.

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Judges have been contending with threats of violence, actual violence, doxing, impeachment and removal, harassment of their families, and the flagrant refusal to obey their orders in unprecedented numbers since Donald Trump took office a second time. Some of the most unremitting and personal threats, of course, have come from the president himself and his Justice Department. But judges also have ethical obligations that typically prevent them from speaking directly to these ongoing threats, as well as an orientation toward maintaining silence on public political matters. As a result, some of the worst threats have gone unanswered, or been minimized, or been swept aside under the banner of “free speech.”

In the meantime, the chill on the bench is real, as is the fear. On this week’s Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick had a candid conversation with a sitting judge and a former judge about the unique vulnerabilities of jurists under attack, and why the public must commit itself to a more zealous defense of an independent judiciary. Judge Jeremy Fogel is the first executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute at Berkeley Law School, whose mission is to build bridges between judges and academics and to promote an ethical, resilient, and independent judiciary. Prior to his appointment at Berkeley, he served as director of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C., and before that as a United States district judge for the Northern District of California. Robert S. Lasnik is a federal judge on senior status with the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. He joined the court in 1998 after being nominated by former President Bill Clinton. Lasnik served as chief judge of that court from 2004 to 2011. A portion of their conversation, edited and condensed for clarity, has been excerpted below.