Beltway Bulletin

Remarks on the Daniel Anderl Bill

By Hon. Bruce H. Hendricks

Guest columnist Hon. Bruce H. Hendricks is a U.S. district judge for the District of South Carolina and former U.S. magistrate judge of the same court. Judge Hendricks served as an assistant U.S. attorney for 11 years before her appointment as magistrate judge in 2002. As magistrate judge, she presided over the first drug court program in the District of South Carolina, which Attorney General Eric Holder praised as “a national model.” Nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina by President Obama in 2013, Judge Hendricks was confirmed by a vote of 95-0, a tally not often seen in judicial confirmations these days. She is the first woman from Charleston to serve on the federal bench. Note: At the FBA’s Annual Meeting in Charleston, S.C., Judge Bruce Hendricks delivered the following inspiring remarks, not only urging support for the Daniel Anderl Judicial Privacy and Security Act, but also calling on each of us, as members of the bar, to address the root of the increase in attacks on our judiciary: pervasive mistrust in our institutions of government. As Judge Hendricks eloquently explains, “[w]e are curators of the public trust and the rule of law,” and we must “practice in such a way that people accept justice even when they don’t prefer it.”

It’s an honor to address you all on this account.

Of course, I did invite myself.

I looked around at our Board of Directors for the South Carolina Chapter, which is apparently literally every member of our chapter, … and, I didn’t see anyone who could stop me. Certainly not Beattie Ashmore. Now our national president, Ms. Kremer, maybe. But she has no jurisdiction here. This is still South Carolina.

And, even Trey and Bakari, who are certainly rockstars, have long since abandoned any real power in Article I or General Assembly authority. So, it was pretty much an unimpeded waltz to the dais today to say whatever it was that I preferred.

I would sincerely like to thank the federal bar and our local chapter. For this event every year. For your undying support of the federal judiciary. Our chapter is relentless in offering service however they can. For mentoring programs. For CLEs. For our federal drug court program. For our practitioners and court personnel. And, I would especially like to thank them for giving me some time today to discuss something that has become increasingly personal for me.

As you know, the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act is pending in the Senate. The Bill is named after U.S. District Judge Esther Salas’s late son, Daniel Anderl, who was shot at their home in New Jersey. The assailant was disgruntled over one of her honor’s rulings. The Act proposes to shield the personal information of jurists in order to better protect against such attacks. It restricts the ability of public and private entities’ ability to publish the personal information of federal jurists. It is a kind of anti-doxing bill. The bill has been hung up in some of the typical machinations of our legislative process. I wanted to share briefly about it with you today. I think it is important on a few fronts.

I’d like to first express my desperate condolences to Judge Salas and her husband—who was also shot in the incident—for their unspeakable loss. As a mother and grandmother, I cannot imagine. I have gotten to know her some recently as a colleague and friend, in her grief, and this shared and sacred duty to do justice. It is a tragedy for them that has touched me deeply. Unfortunately, the Salas’s story is not aberrational. There have been other high profile and lesser known attacks on, or inappropriate contacts with, judicial officers, court personnel, and their families, federal and state. And, indeed the rate of such incidents have spiked in just 7 short years from only 768 in 2014 to 4500 in 2021. A rubicon has certainly been crossed.

But, it feels a little self-serving to ruminate on judicial security, as a judicial officer. We take these jobs for their tremendous privilege—but unequivocally knowing their tremendous personal risk. Accepting, the presidential nomination is caveat emptor so to speak. We can’t say that we didn’t know.

And, we also cannot say that our safety is not already a national priority. Our benches are bullet proof. Entry into our courthouses is well managed. There is an entire federal agency tasked with protecting us around the clock. Court security dutifully escorts us wherever we fancy, whenever we like. Marshalls are at our door the moment a threat materializes. I have an adventure dog, Henry, who is with me at all times, and I work out with nine personal trainers, give or take. I’m not asking for trouble, but I grew up fist fighting boys and my brothers, and I am no damsel in distress.

And, so these remarks are not an appeal about physical protection, necessarily. Although, the lives that might be saved are worth every bit of ink in the bill, on their own accord. And, I only wish that Daniel could be returned to his grieving parents.

But, truthfully, my concerns are not about personal threats. They are about democratic, indeed constitutional, ones. I am not a sociologist. And, this is not a Netflix docuseries on the evils of social media or the conspiracy hives occupying the deepest parts of the web. But, you don’t have to be a culture expert to know we are at a moment of pervasive mistrust.

Mistrust in information. Mistrust in others. Mistrust in institutions and government. Mistrust in the court system. We can’t even be sure that the video or audio we see and hear is authentic or whether it’s a deep fake cooked up by your middle schooler on Tik Tok. It’s a kind of collective information vertigo. And, it’s driving us mad.

Jon Jay said in some enumerated Federalist Paper, “Distrust naturally creates distrust, and by nothing is good will and kind conduct more speedily changed.” Our pervasive distrust is a direct threat to civilized society and the constitutional institutions and procedures upon which it operates.

All my family are lawyers. Almost anyone else would probably be ashamed to confess it. But, it’s my every personal pride. Some of the most prominent litigators in this State’s history are my forebears. It’s all I ever wanted to do. Skipping class to run down to the courthouse and watch my dad in closing argument through courtroom door window. I was raised to believe we were the good guys.

We wax romantic about our profession and those more convivial and philosophical days. But, I still genuinely believe it about us. We are curators of public trust and the rule of law. We occupy authority and power in every quadrant of society and business and government. We are front-line ambassadors to the world on essentially every issue that matters. So how we behave, and the accuracy of our speech, matters. There is no system. We are the system.

And, so, we are stereotypically and historically perceived as part of the problem. And, indeed institutions, including our own profession, offend. Communities of color. Historically marginalized groups. Their distrust has been regrettably hard earned. It’s not based on some collective delusion or dizziness algorithmed by Twitter or YouTube. That kind of distrust is justified.

But, I know we, as lawyers, are well suited to be a part of the solution – for both justifiable and unjustifiable mistrust. We have to renew a commitment to conduct and language which resurrects trust in our institutions and each other.

Let our consultations be earnest. Don’t treat clients like a “mark,” I’ve heard Frank Eppes say.

Let our arguments be authentic. Don’t treat the court like a fool.

Let our prosecutions be proportionate. Don’t treat defendants like numbers.

Let our orders be human. Don’t treat the public like a transaction.

Let us practice in such a way that people accept justice even when they don’t prefer it, which is essentially every single time.

There are so many simple and everyday ways for us to help restore order and some sense of stability.

Our chapter of the Federal Bar has an amazing civics program. Its aim is to help reraise the lost collective IQ in how federalism and a democratic republic works. FDR summarized this need well, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”

Ironically and sadly, it was a lawyer disgruntled with one of Judge Salas’s rulings who shot Daniel. Among probably other things, he suffered the vertigo. He couldn’t figure out which end was up.

It is very frustrating being a lawyer. You are at our mercy. The mercy of our rulings. The mercy of our power. The mercy of our sometimes, maybe often, ignorance. I really get it. Your practice feels like a swirling cauldron of irrationality. But, your training is specifically in sense making. You know how to bring order to intellectual chaos. To reduce complexity to usable paradigm, like a—I don’t know—a McDonald Douglas burden shifting scheme, for example. It’s what you do. The insanity of a right or left wing extremist podcast is no match for the unique musings of a pro se 1983 filing.

The point being—your skills in reason and sense making have never been more needed. Let us turn it back again on each other and the world. To restore hope to those offended and order to those who think there is simply none left.

The Daniel Anderl bill is definitely about human safety. As tough as I think I am, unlike the bench I sit behind, I am unequivocally not bullet proof. The special and important lives of Daniel and so many others might have been spared for the protections it would now propose.

And, we can lead by supporting it. I’d simply ask today that you educate yourself about the Bill and then encourage others, in power and elsewhere, to do the same.

But, you know this. The very worst use of your legal practice is you. The personal gain and the prestige, it’s not our calling. We will do Daniel and ultimately free society, the most justice, if we practice and work in a way that begins to slowly unwind this public distrust which is so much the real source of all kinds personal and physical risk in our country - from the courthouse to the schoolhouse. When we set our sense making loose on the world again, we will safeguard democracy and hopefully protect many lives in the process.

Thank you again to the Federal Bar and for your kind attention and time today. 

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