After a high school football game was rain-soaked in 2015, Julie Kocurek and her family decided to return home early.
The Travis County state district judge’s son, then 15 years old and with a new learner’s permit, drove the family van to his home in Austin’s Tarrytown neighborhood. The teen stopped in the driveway after seeing something strange: a bag of leaves placed in front of the security gate of his home. When his son came out and moved the bag, a man dressed in black ran up and shot Kocurek several times, sending glass and shrapnel flying.
With the help of his son, Kocurek survived. He underwent more than 30 surgeries to recover from his injuries before returning to the bench. The assassination attempt prompted state lawmakers in 2017 to pass a law aimed at strengthening security and threat reporting requirements for judges. A Houston man, who faced parole revocation in Kocurek court weeks before the November shooting, was sentenced to life in prison in 2018.
Related:Man found guilty of trying to murder judge in Austin
Kocurek, speaking Tuesday in Dallas, said that while state laws have improved security for judges, more must be done to protect judicial officials nationwide.
“This law had a significant impact on keeping Texas judges safer, but all judges in our country deserve this protection,” Kocurek said during a panel discussion hosted by the University of North Texas School of Law in Dallas. . “And I’ve been to a lot of states where they don’t have anything.”
Panelists discussed legislation sponsored by U.S. Senator John Cornyn that would allocate funds to establish a new resource center tasked with monitoring threats and providing training to state and local court judges and staff. Cornyn, the state’s top Republican senator, said the center is needed to address a growing number of reported threats and attacks against judicial officials, particularly those in sparsely populated areas that lack funding for robust courthouse security systems.
Jessica Nickel, a consultant with the nonprofit National Center for State Courts, said attacks and threats against members of the federal judiciary were on the rise. In 2021, federal judges, prosecutors and judicial officials faced more than 4,500 threats, a 400% increase since 2015, she said.
The United States Marshal Service protects members of the federal judiciary. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht, who spoke during the roundtable, said the federal law enforcement agency does a “very strong job” protecting members, including monitoring mail and the security of federal courts.
Chief Justice Nathan Hecht speaks with U.S. Senator John Cornyn after a panel discussion on the Countering Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act, at the UNT School of Law in Dallas on June 25, 2024. (Deaf Blue / Special Contributor)
The protection offered to members of state and local judiciaries may vary. In Texas, a county sheriff’s office typically handles courthouse security, which means resources can be limited for rural counties with fewer residents. Nickel said threats to members of state and local judiciaries, as well as their federal counterparts, are increasing.
In Texas, Judge Julie Kocurek’s Judicial and Courthouse Security Act established a security-focused division within the state’s Office of Court Administration. It also removed home addresses and other personal information of state and federal judges and their spouses from publicly available government databases. The presiding judge of the court must be notified on the day an incident occurs.
Since the law’s passage, the number of reported security incidents has increased, according to the Office of Court Administration, reaching a high of 588 in fiscal year 2022.
Roundtable speakers included Rockwall County District Attorney Kenda Culpepper and Kaufman County District Attorney Erleigh Wiley, both of whom have received threats, they said.
Wiley was appointed district attorney after her predecessor, Mike McLelland, and the county’s top felony prosecutor were murdered by a former justice of the peace, Eric Williams, in 2013. The case was moved to county district court of Rockwall, where a jury convicted the former justice of the peace of capital murder in 2014. Culpepper was on the team that prosecuted the case.
“When Governor (Rick) Perry appointed me, (Williams) had not been captured. And then there was a possible loss of life for me,” Wiley said. Testimony and evidence at Williams’ trial later showed that his name was on a “hit list” drawn up by Williams, he added.
District Attorney Kenda Culpepper at a roundtable discussion hosted by U.S. Senator John Cornyn on the recently passed Anti-Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act at UNT Dallas School of Law on June 25, 2024. (Azul Sordo / Special collaborator)
Williams was sent to death row. An execution date has not yet been set, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Related:Kaufman County DA’s killer Eric Williams asks federal judge for new death penalty trial
On June 13, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to pass Cornyn’s bill, called the Countering Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act. Cornyn characterized the bipartisan effort as a “source of some encouragement” for the prospect of the bill passing the U.S. House of Representatives, which has not yet considered the proposed legislation.
Two representatives from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, supported the measure, he said.
“This is not partisan. It’s just common sense,” Cornyn said during a news conference after the roundtable.
Cornyn’s comments Tuesday echoed similar efforts from two years ago. After a man who had threatened to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was arrested outside the judge’s Maryland home in 2022, Congress passed a bill, also sponsored by Cornyn, to expand police protection of the Supreme Court for relatives of superior court judges.
“We have no time to waste when it comes to protecting members of the court and their families,” Cornyn told the KeynoteUSA At the time. “If, God forbid, something were to happen…shame on the members of the House of Representatives. “It would be their responsibility for failing to act on this bipartisan, common-sense bill.”
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