Judge Sonia Sotomayor was targeted by gunman, federal judge told ’60 minutes’



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Salas said authorities found a file on Sotomayor in a locker used by the attacker, Roy Den Hollander, a lawyer who had a case before Salas and committed suicide after killing his son Daniel.

“They found another weapon, a Glock, more ammunition. But the most disturbing thing they found was a manila file with work on Judge Sonia Sotomayor,” Salas said in the interview.

A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court declined to comment on the report, saying the court “does not discuss security as a matter of judicial policy.”

Chief Justice John Roberts did not comment directly on the attack but has spoken out on security concerns in the past, issuing a rare rebuke to then Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for the criticisms he made to Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch on the 2020 court stages.

“Judges know criticism comes with territory, but threatening statements like this from the highest level of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” Roberts said at the time.

Salas and others are working to pass legislation that would protect judges’ personally identifiable information from being posted on public websites.

“Who knows what could have happened?” Salas told CBS. “But we have to understand that judges run risks. That we put ourselves in great danger every day to do our jobs.”

James Duff, then director of the US Courts Administrative Office, told Congress last year that there were 4,449 inappropriate threats and communications in 2019, up from 926 such incidents in 2015, according to the US Marshals Service.

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