Project 365

What is additionally exciting about this video is it is available to local and state judges through their Sheriff’s office for FREE. The USMS has distributed the first version without charge to Sheriffs throughout the country to enable them to proactively engage their judiciary in security in a manner that is non-threatening, but educational. Project 365’s Version 2 will be distributed soon, enabling Sheriffs to continue to educate their judiciary on safety practices that they can implement.

Inarguably judges are the critical stakeholders within the court security context and we as the court security practitioners are responsible not in just protecting them but educating and including them in security matters. The free Project 365 DVDs offer an excellent opportunity to proactively engage our judiciary in a non-confrontational manner.

In that same vein of safety practices for our judges, the federal government has a statute that originated out of the 2007 Court Security Improvement Act that can act as a guide for state legislatures. The US Code, title 18, chapter 7, section 119 prohibits a person revealing restricted information about a judicial official or their immediate family. In other words a person cannot put a judge’s home address or telephone numbers on the internet with the intent to threaten or intimidate a judge. The maximum penalty for violating this statute is five years of imprisonment.

While this may seem a severe restriction of the freedom of speech to some individuals, I believe it is a prudent security enhancement for our judiciary in general. The Virginia House of Delegates just passed a bill the other day, HB 556, which would prohibit publication on the internet of personal information of certain public officials. Those officials include Virginia judges. The courts have reinforced the idea that freedom of speech is not unlimited, i.e. you cannot yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater, causing unnecessary panic and harm if no fire exists.

Enacting a state code modeled on the federal statue to protect judge’s personal information would not add a monetary burden, but would demonstrate the commitment by our communities that judges are not to be intimidated nor threatened.