In Cracker Barrels and town squares, a group of judges and other civic leaders have raised alarms this week over a judiciary they consider under attack.
By bus, the group — which includes both sitting and retired judges — traveled from the suburbs of Pittsburgh to outside Detroit, eating barbecue and warning crowds about physical threats to judges and a rising tide of criticism from elected officials, one of the participants said.
The “Justice in Motion” tour, which ends today in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, is unusual for members of the judiciary, who in general are reluctant to make political statements or speak on issues outside of their courtrooms.
The event’s website says participants are not “partisan actors,” and are “meeting Americans where they are to talk about why the Rule of Law matters to the American way of life.” About 30 judges have participated, according to organizers, including some from the federal bench.
Maureen O’Connor, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio who joined the caravan, said she was concerned about other branches of government attempting to intimidate judges, including “our highest elected official.”
President Donald Trump has publicly criticized both lower-court judges and Supreme Court justices, and excoriatedfederal- and state-level judges who ruled against him in civil and criminal cases between his two terms in office.
Many Republican lawmakers and Trump administration officials also have attacked judges who have blocked key administration initiatives. At the same time, threats against individual judges have spiked. In at least seven states last year, unordered pizzas showed up at the doors of judges and their relatives, indicating the senders knew who those judges were and where they lived.
Courts have beefed up security as a result and called for more funding to keep judges safe. On Tuesday, Supreme Court justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett are set to make a rare appearance before Congress, as the court requests a $20.6 million budget increase to bolster security.
“The American judiciary is under attack,” O’Connor said. She called the caravan “a first of its kind in this country.”
Participants included Megan K. Cavanagh, the current chief justice of Michigan Supreme Court, and Tom Corbett, the most recent Republican governor of Pennsylvania who is a former federal prosecutor and state attorney general.
The tour, organized by nonpartisan advocacy groups Keep Our Republic and Democracy Rising Collaborative, is modeled after a similar campaign in 2021 by Polish judges who were protesting efforts by legislators to change the country’s court system.
Why did retired judges march in Columbus 7/8? Inspired by Poland’s March of 1,000 Robes, they joined attorneys & citizens on the #JusticeInMotion tour to defend an independent judiciary. This #CupOfJoe is the backbone of our rights. Learn more: justiceinmotion.us
In recent years, Central European judges have become more willing to speak out on public affairs, trading their robes for jeans and speaking to crowds, said Melissa Hooper of the German Marshall Fund, a think tank that brings foreign judges to the United States to meet with American jurists.
Hooper credits those public campaigns for helping to defeat Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the polls earlier this year. But judges in the U.S., Hooper said, tend to view themselves as separate from their communities.
“I really admire that these judges are taking the first step of getting out there,” said Hooper, who did not organize the U.S. event.
The judges’ parade around the Great Lakes in a beige coach bus was timed to begin just after the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4.
In Cleveland, O’Connor said, the group spoke with high school and college kids, one of whom challenged the judges on unequal sentences for Black convicts.
In Wooster, Ohio, she added, their audience filled the town square.
“We didn’t have one heckler or one protester show up,” O’Connor said. “I think that that speaks to the neutrality of what we’re saying. We’re not political.”
In Columbus, O’Connor led a procession of a few dozen people through downtown, many of them wearing black robes. She held the leash of her dog and a lavender rose, which symbolized judicial independence.
As the judges separated from the crowd, O’Connor realized that their tour bus didn’t have a vase to keep the rose alive. So, she handed it to an onlooker who promised to place it in water.
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