Courthouse security is back in the news, just in time for Albany lawmakers to debate how to pay for it.

On March 11, in the federal district courthouse in Brooklyn, a convicted drug trafficker tried to slash a prosecutor with a razor. According to news reports, he was tackled before he could injure his intended victim.

A week later, a group of Brooklyn judges prepared to sue the city to keep their parking spots nearby the Supreme Court building. Supreme Court justice Herbert Kramer told the New York Daily News that losing the parking spots would pose a danger for jurists. “This is no perk; this is a security issue,” he said.

It’s been a while since the last homicide in a New York courthouse, but the memory was still vivid for Dennis W. Quirk, the head of the New York State Court Officers Association — the organization representing the Criminal, Civil and Family Court officers in the city.

“The last major tragic incident was when a guy walked right up to his wife in the waiting room of Brooklyn Family Court with 200 people [in it]. He shot his wife right in front of everybody,” said the veteran court administrator, recalling the 1993 incident when a state parole officer used his service revolver to murder his wife before a divorce hearing.

Quirk also recalled another shooting when a Queens man wounded his estranged girlfriend and then shot himself in the Manhattan Criminal Court in 1973 during a domestic abuse trial. That shooting occurred on then-Criminal Court Judge (now-Queens District Attorney) Richard A. Brown’s first day on the bench.

As Albany reels from gubernatorial scandals and the judiciary begs the State Legislature for raises, court personnel would be forgiven for harboring fears about cuts to security budgets.

It’s true that Administrative Judges around the state petitioned the Office of Court Administration (OCA) for 237 new court security personnel in this year’s budget — adding millions to the $400-plus-million New York already spends on courthouse security funds. But that’s not enough for the likes of Quirk.

“Even though there have been increases in the amount of money, it’s never been enough,” he said. “We have severe shortages of equipment and funding. They don’t even supply bulletproof vests for court officers.”

What’s more, at least one national security expert warns that a focus on urban hot spots could leave Upstate or other remote locales at greater risk — though that’s a claim that Quirk finds dubious.

Courthouse security blasted to public attention in 2005 (on March 11, to be exact, spawning the shorthand of “3-11” among Atlanta court watchers) when an accused rapist killed four people in a daring, vicious courthouse escape. He was soon recaptured, but caused administrators around the country to reconsider policies and funding for courthouse security.

OCA spokesperson David Bookstaver had an unequivocal response when asked to recall what New York had learned from that grim lesson. “Although bad things can happen in courthouses, our review showed that that type of incident simply could not happen because we have procedures to prevent that scenario from unfolding,” he explained.

Still, around the country, some experts are noting that budget cuts could be potentially threatening to court security. Judith Cramer, Court Administrator for Fulton County Superior Court, Atlanta Judicial Circuit, has been grappling with security funding problems ever since that courthouse tragedy rocked her organization.

“The incident on 3-11 — it’s helped courts all across the country to get more funding,” she explained in an interview. “It’s ironic. We are here in a county struggling for funding while other courts around the country are getting funding because of our event.”

According to OCA officials, New York’s courthouse guardians have plenty of resources.  

While the State Legislature won’t deliver judicial pay raises, they grant security requests and operational expenses without blinking an eye, according to OCA Administrative Director Lawrence K. Marks.

“The Legislature has always been very receptive to our requests for court financing,” he said. “In recent years we’ve been very successful in getting funding for our entire budget request for operations generally.”

Even before the Atlanta attack, the security budget had been steadily climbing. According to news reports, the New York courthouse security budget was $100 million in 1993 — the year of the last courthouse killing in Brooklyn Family Court.

According to OCA figures, the 2000-2001 budget included about $256 million for courthouse security. By 2005-2006, that number had risen to $342 million.

Today, the annual security budget stands at $407 million, approximately 16 percent of the total budget.

Even that hasn’t filled all the gaps, according to John McKillop, president of the New York State Supreme Court Officers Association — the organization that represents Supreme Court officers in New York City and the Ninth Judicial District.

“We are suffering from a constant shortage of personnel,” he said in an interview. “Conservatively, they need to increase the security budget by 15 percent [above the $407 million] — at a minimum.”

Following the 2005 attacks in Atlanta, Marks chaired a 10-person Task Force on Court Security that set new security goals for New York. According to the report, the previous 10 years saw some 1,300 threats to judges statewide.

While he didn’t reveal the exact count currently, Marks said that the threat frequency has not changed dramatically: “The numbers of judicial threats over the past three years have been pretty much consistent with the numbers over the previous 10 years.

The Task Force prescribed 47 reforms for the court system — requesting more staffing and more unified procedures across the state.

Nevertheless, Quirk felt it all fell far short. “There’s been some added resources in New York, but no tremendous resources. There’s been no major change,” he said. “None of that [Task Force] report has ever really been implemented.”

Marks insisted that the OCA was meeting the call for more well-trained officers: “There’s been tremendous progress in implementing those recommendations,” he said. “We’re doing a lot more training.”

In the 2006-2007 budget, the OCA requested $13.2 million for near-term improvements in courthouse security — including equipment for the new Bronx courthouse and various changes to comport with the recommendations of the 2005 Task Force.

In addition, the 2007-2008 budget included more than $50 million earmarked for the “acquisition of and improvements to a training academy . . . having multiple purposes including the training of court security personnel” in Saratoga and Kings Counties — another training initiative that followed the Task Force recommendations.


Some national experts feel that the biggest threats to courtrooms are in less populous areas.

Since 1975, Lawrence Siegel has been a security consultant for courthouses around the country, most recently  traveling to more than 20 different state courts as part of American University’s Court Security and Disaster Preparedness Project.

After exploring the vulnerabilities to natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and courthouse violence, the consultant worried about outlying areas.

“Any city with a population of a couple hundred thousand on up has got some sort of security force in the courthouses. That still leaves a number of counties where it’s more difficult to make that happen,” he noted, adding that many state constitutions leave security responsibilities to local governments.

That’s a problem that leaves some smaller courtrooms vulnerable to attack.

“It’s not a popular issue — to be a county commissioner campaigning on the issue of spending more money on court security. That doesn’t have the same results as cleaning snow off the road or keeping the roads maintained,” said Siegel.


New York State courts have already begun to cope with the divide between small towns and big cities. In 1977 the State Legislature passed a Constitutional amendment that ordered the OCA to take control of courts statewide.

Since then, the State has worked to bring OCA-trained officers into communities where local law enforcement agencies once handled courthouse security. In the three years since the Task Force recommendations, Erie, Broome, and Onondaga Counties were the three largest counties where this shift has occurred.
 
Atlanta’s Judith Cramer admired this example, noting that Georgia’s local administrators lack statewide unity.

“In a non-unified court system, every court has to work with their own county and city court officials to get funding and it’s very difficult,” she said.  “We have to compete for funding with other organizations on a local level.”

According to Marks, the transition is fairly inexpensive for New York. “There’s not a significant impact on our budget,” he explained. “We had always contracted with the local governments, so it tends to be cost neutral. . . . The impact on the budget is not really substantial.”

“In many cases it is cost neutral,” agreed McKillop of the State Supreme Court Officers Association.  “As long as they give us the appropriate staff. Sometimes, sheriff department’s standards and staffing are far less than we require . . . that would not be cost-neutral.”

The big problem for Albany, of course, is putting a price tag on potential disaster.