'Under attack': Experts sound alarm over new 'attempts to intimidate and undermine judges'

Members of the US Supreme Court

In an article for The Hill published Sunday, Kellye Y. Testy, executive director of the Association of American Law Schools, and Austen Parrish, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, argued that the U.S. judiciary faces a growing crisis of legitimacy, driven by increasingly intense threats, political attacks, and efforts to delegitimize judges.

They warned that these pressures aren’t just parties complaining about decisions, but rather a deeper assault on the independence of the courts — something essential to democracy.

"American judges are under attack. Approximately one-third of the federal judiciary have received threats over the last year, and the U.S. Marshals Service reports more than 500 threatswere made against federal judges over the past 11 months, with a noticeable spike in recent months. The sheer number of threats, including to judges’ families, are unprecedented," they wrote.

Testy and Parrish argued that many of the attacks come from high‐ranking executive branch officials when courts rule against administration policy, and from Democrats and Republicans alike when they believe justices have acted beyond their preferred political lines. These attacks, they insisted, are not just garden‐variety political heat, but part of a darker escalation in rhetoric, public delegitimization, and disregard for constitutional limits.

They further argued that the implications go far beyond the most visible federal or Supreme Court cases. They pointed out that tens of millions of cases are handled each year in state courts and family courts, contract and property disputes, criminal law, wills, insurance, traffic violations — matters that touch almost every American’s life.

The authors noted that when the judiciary is seen as politicized, under attack, or as lacking legitimacy, trust erodes even in those local and everyday contexts, with ripple effects for individuals, businesses, governments, and for social order more broadly.

To counter this trend, Testy and Parrish urged not just condemnation, but active defense of judicial independence. They called on lawyers, legal educators, bar associations, law firms, and legal organizations to more forcefully correct misinformation, reject ad hominem attacks and violent threats, emphasize competence and integrity rather than ideology in judicial appointments, and help law students and the public understand the importance of courts operating impartially under the rule of law.

The legal experts argued that ongoing attacks discourage qualified people from seeking the bench, worsening vacancies and undermining fairness of outcomes.

"Make no mistake: what’s occurring in high-profile cases risks having ripple effects in other federal, state and local courts. Our legal system depends on judicial independence and integrity, and it doesn’t function if judges are targets of crass political opportunism. Attempts to intimidate and undermine judges threatens a crisis of legitimacy even on issues that have nothing to do with national politics, jeopardizing well-functioning courts serving families, local governments, organizations and businesses of all sizes," they wrote.

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