Ex-lawyer killed 2 at Texas courthouse in '92: Should lawyers now be able to bypass security there?
Angry about a divorce and child-custody battle in which he was a party and facing criminal charges in another state concerning claimed abuse of a relative, a former Texas lawyer took a 9 mm semiautomatic Glock to the Tarrant County courthouse in July 1992 and started shooting.
Two lawyers were killed, and two appellate judges and another lawyer were injured in an incident that stunned the state and led to increased security measures in courthouses throughout Texas. The gunman, George Lott, chose to represent himself at trial and forgo appeals. Lott—who was not eligible to practice law at the time of the shooting—was executed in 1994.
Now, nearly 25 years later, with security lines sometimes snaking outside courthouse doors, officials are rethinking and considering whether to allow attorneys to enter the Tarrant County Courthouse without revealing the contents of briefcases and other items they are carrying, the Star-Telegram reports.
Supporters of the proposal, who include the district attorney and some judges, say attorneys pose a low risk.
“You don’t hear about criminal defense lawyers shooting the place up,” attorney Greg Westfall told the Star-Telegram, adding: “We are professionals, and we have business to do, and the courts are waiting for us while we are in line.”
Rather than criminal defense attorneys, it is those personally involved in domestic matters who are likelier to pose a danger, a number of court observers say.
Under the proposed new approach, lawyers would still be required to be OK’d by a sheriff’s deputy to get into the courthouse. However, they could avoid standard visitor scrutiny by getting an attorney identification card that would require an annual background check by the sheriff’s department, the newspaper explains. Judges could still nix individual lawyers and lawyers also could have their AID cards suspended if they were involved in any criminal conduct between background checks.
But some question the benefit of reducing courthouse security and are concerned that this won’t be the end such corner-cutting.
“It is a slippery slope, and I don’t see any reason to go down it,” said state District Judge Judith Wells. She works at the Tarrant County Family Law Center.
The National Center for State Courts called university security screening the optimum best practice in a 2013 study, the Star-Telegram notes. “Everybody should be screened every time they enter a court building,” the report recommended.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Decades after ex-attorney killed 2 lawyers, shot judges in Texas courtroom, fatal conflicts continue”
New York Times (reg. req, 1994): “Texas Executes Former Lawyer Who Killed Two in Courtroom”
