US District Judge Esther Salas says she plans to return to work today with a full caseload and renewed resolve to push for increased judicial security measures in the wake of her son’s shooting death last summer by a self-styled “men’s rights” lawyer who was explicitly targeting her.
During an interview with Law360 on Friday, the New Jersey federal judge said she’s confident that Congress will advance the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act of 2020, a bill that stalled in the last legislative session despite advocates’ efforts to expedite it. Named after Judge Salas and her lawyer husband Mark Anderl’s son, the bill would scrub judges’ personal information from the internet and ban the resale of that information by data brokers.
“There are priorities in the [political] parties that oftentimes force issues like this to take a back seat,” said lawyer Guillermo C. Artiles, a former law clerk for Judge Salas who now chairs McCarter & English LLP’s government affairs practice.
Yet Artiles and others suspect the gravity of the legislation’s subject is likely to prevent possible delays due to its unfortunate timing.