State courts handle more than 103 million cases every year, affecting every aspect of our life. Their universal accessibility has been at the cornerstone of our understanding of the rule of law for nearly 800 years, since the Magna Carta promised that courts would be openly held in the towns and villages of England. That transparency has always required a balance between free and open access and the need to ensure that the proceedings, the litigants and court staff are safe and secure.
According to the Center for Judicial and Executive Security in St. Paul, Minnesota, there have been 406 court-targeted acts-of-violence incidents against courts including shootings, bombings, arson attacks and incidents of knifings, assaults, murder-for-hire and bomb plots, suicides and other violence since 2005. While this figure reflects the most current data available, it is quite certain that a relatively high number of other incidents have occurred but were not reported or have not been documented.
