Hi, and welcome back to Bench Report! I hope you all have fun plans for the weekend that don't involve getting sunburned, as I did last weekend. Keep the SPF nearby and in the meantime send all of your news, tips and feedback to [email protected], and follow me on Twitter at @jacq_thomsen.

 

Deputy Fletcher Veitch of the U.S. Marshals Service and Brando, who since November has served as an explosives detection canine for the Marshals Service. Veitch and Brando, a yellow labrador retriever, primarily serve the federal courts in Washington. April 27, 2015. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM.
 

A Security Scramble

The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General this week gave the U.S. marshals poor marks for how they're handling judicial security.

The IG audit of the U.S. Marshals Service's Judicial Security Division was released nearly a year after the fatal shooting of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas's son at her home in New Jersey, by a men's rights activist who had previously appeared in her court (the lawyer was later found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound). And according to the report, there's been an 89% increase "in security incidents involving, and inappropriate communications and threats made to, USMS-protected officials," which include judges, from fiscal year 2016 to 2019.