Reading book after book about the misery, failings and injustice of the system gets, well, a bit wearing over time.  So I was truly thrilled when I received a (free, FTC people monitoring for compliance) copy of Lt. Jimmie H. Barrett’s book, Protecting Court.  Sure, it’s not exactly miles off the mark, but it was certainly a change of pace.

And Lt. Jimmie Barrett wrote one great book.  Protecting Court is primarily a “how-to” manual for best practices in running a court, from the courthouse to the courtroom, and everything in between.  The book is written in a very straight forward, clear and concise manner, easy and quick to read.  And peppered throughout with historical examples showing the need for various types of security measures and the consequences of lax security. 

Shockingly, after reading the book, it becomes clear that so many of the courthouses I’ve been in, despite the vast number of court officers, handguns and magnetometers, fall substantially short of providing real security in many ways.  There’s far more to it than just putting a bunch of uniforms in the room, or the occasional perimeter walk.  Lt. Barrett provides an astoundingly thorough nuts and bolts approach, and with a sense of humor that finds its way through his straight-talking prose.

While this is obviously a must-read for those charged with courthouse security and administration, why would the trench lawyer care?  Three words: Officer, Judge, Defendant.  These are the security priorities of the court officer, in that order.  It explains much of the staffing, positioning, training and reactions of the officers to what’s happening in the courtroom.  And no, I didn’t omit the lawyer’s sorry butt from the top three list.  We’re way down there, with the rest of the riff-raff in the gallery.  Best to know up front what to do if things go south in a courtroom.

As lawyers, as well as protectors and instructors to our clients when they appear before the court, an in-depth understanding of what drives court security, what officers are looking for and how they are likely to deal with it, allows us to be far more effective in both avoiding potential problems as well as assisting our clients to navigate the courthouse without causing themselves any additional problems.  After all, by the time they call us, they already have enough on their plate without wreaking inadvertent havoc in the courtroom.

For judges, this book is critical, both for your own protection and, because you are in charge of your courtroom and, for better or worse, the court officers are going to take instruction from you, a working awareness of the implications of your directions to the staff.   As Lt. Barrett spells out, there have been many instances of judges harmed in the courthouse for lack of basic forethought and care.  Not necessarily in criminal courts, by the way, but notably with domestic relations and custody cases, where tempers flare red hot.  A judge’s off-the-cuff directions to security staff could substantially compromise safety if she doesn’t appreciate the rationale behind the security staff’s job.

Certainly no one wants a judge harmed, and the best way to help the staff assigned for your protection is to understand what they are doing and why.  Without this knowledge, and particularly given the other concerns on a judge’s plate, lack of appreciation of courtroom security could have potentially terrible consequences.  There’s just no reason for this to be, given that you can read this book and aid in the safety and security of your courtroom.  An excellent example is why only the primary court officer should be armed, while everyone else in the courtroom, police officers included (and especially, as Lt. Barrett explains), should be without weapons. 

On this note, Lt. Barrett points out that people’s concept of how to behave in court has gone the way of Judge Judy, with screaming judges and screaming litigants, who haven’t got the slightest concept of decorum or why they aren’t just as entitled to speak their mind as the judge, argument in the living room style.  For the court officer, this is a nightmare, but with proper training, policies, procedures and understanding, everything can be kept under control and no one gets hurt.  At the end of the day, even angry litigants go home in a well run courthouse, a competent security staff capable of ending minor incidents without escalation while maintaining a level of respect for the public.

While the price for Protecting Court is a bit high for the casual reader, it really is a terrific book, well written and, believe it or not, fun to read.  Ah, what a joy to read Abbie Hoffman and Bill Kunstler’s antics in the Chicago 7 case, where they turned the courtroom into a circus.  The good old days.   Protecting Court a great read and I recommend it highly for anyone whose living, and life, take place in a courtroom.