The Bench Under Siege

By Amanda Ripley

Careers in law often make people hard and suspicious. But employment lawyer Michael Lefkow and his wife, U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, seemed to lead unusually open and trusting lives. The couple drove to work together and held hands in public. Michael's bio is displayed on his practice's website. It includes his hobbies: opera, reading about Lincoln, singing in his church choir. At one point--before white-supremacist groups pasted the information onto their own sites--he apparently posted photos of his daughters and even the address of his home, in a tree-lined neighborhood of Chicago. And although the family had been the target of threats, the Lefkows did not have a burglar alarm.

One evening last week, Joan Lefkow came home to find blood seeping out from under a door to the basement office. Inside, she saw her husband, 64, and her mother Donna Humphrey, 89, lying on the floor. Both had been shot in the chest and head with a .22.

In U.S. history, only three federal judges have been assassinated--all since 1979. But officials who track such figures say this is the first time they can recall a judge's family being killed and not the judge. It is, in some ways, worse. "If someone was angry at me, they should go after me," Lefkow told the Chicago Sun-Times two days after the murders. "I'm just furious." Judges get threatened more often than the public might imagine, but the murder of Lefkow's family has rattled courthouses around the nation. This is not supposed to happen in America. "It's news that makes your whole body hurt," says Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, a colleague of Lefkow's. "What an enormous, monstrous evil." The hunt for suspects is relentless because of the symbolic importance of punishing the killers. And the list of possible motives is long. But judges are also asking whether it is possible to better protect those whose work in the justice system makes them targets.

Police and FBI agents say they are chasing every lead in the slayings. They have released sketches of two men who were seen near the house on the morning of the murders. And they are analyzing a rich trove of evidence from the scene, including shell casings and a possible fingerprint. But they say it's too early to draw a clear profile of the killer. Judge Lefkow and her husband were involved in hundreds of cases. Several of hers featured violent characters ranging from Mafia hit men to street thugs. Just last year an angry defendant ranted at her, "You can run, but you can't hide!"

The investigation has included a close look at Matthew Hale, one of the U.S.'s most notorious neo-Nazis, who is awaiting sentencing for soliciting Judge Lefkow's murder in 2002. Hale, 33, is the leader of a white-supremacist group formerly known as the World Church of the Creator. From prison, 10 miles from the Lefkows' home, he issued a statement denying any involvement in last week's murders in his weekly phone call to his mother Evelyn Hutcheson, who read his message to a TIME reporter in the tiny kitchen of her East Peoria home: "I totally condemn it ... Only an idiot would think that I would do this." Hutcheson defends her son: "He's a racist. He has a poison mouth. But he's not guilty of this."

Hale has always denied soliciting Lefkow's murder. The two first crossed paths several years ago, when she handled a trademark case filed against his group by a church with the same name. Initially she ruled in Hale's favor, but after the verdict was overturned by an appeals court, she had no choice but to order him to change the name. Hale grew enraged at the reversal. Days after her ruling, he wrote an e-mail to his followers declaring a "state of war" with the judge and blaming "Jew vermin" for the outcome. (Lefkow is Episcopalian, as was her husband, but extremists insist that one or both of them must be Jewish.)

Hale, who has a law degree, sued Lefkow, accusing her of violating his right to practice his religion. And he asked his security chief to find her home address. When the security chief, who turned out to be an FBI informant, suggested that they should "exterminate the rat," Hale said, on tape, "My position's always been that, you know, I'm gonna fight within the law ... If you wish to, ah, do anything yourself, you can, you know?" A jury interpreted that as tacit approval and convicted him. Hale faces up to 40 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 6 by a judge imported from Indiana.

Whatever Hale's intent, his followers are not famous for restraint. In 1999, days after Hale was denied a license to practice law in Illinois because of his racist views, Ben Smith, one of his most devoted aides, went on a three-day shooting spree, killing two and wounding nine--all minorities--before killing himself. Hale was never charged in connection with the murders.

Since his imprisonment, Hale's organization, which never counted more than a few hundred members, has foundered. In fact, the entire white-supremacy movement is at a crossroads. The Ku Klux Klan still has about 7,000 members, says Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such organizations. But the leaders of several other major groups--like the National Alliance and Aryan Nations--have either died or been arrested in recent years. In the confusion, less formal splinter groups and rabid online communities have formed. Stormfront, the first major white-supremacy site, was created in 1995 and now claims to have 45,600 members. Rough estimates put the total number of members of white-supremacist groups in the U.S. at about 100,000. Many more are unaffiliated--which doesn't mean harmless. Of all hate crimes, only 5% to 10% are committed by members of hate groups, says Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

After Hale was charged with soliciting her murder, Judge Lefkow received 24-hour protection from the U.S. Marshals Service for several weeks. Once he was convicted, Lefkow and the service decided to call off the guards, according to a spokeswoman for the Marshals Service. "I think most judges have had a sort of devil-may-care attitude," says Judge Wayne Anderson, a colleague of Lefkow's, who includes himself in that category. "What we discovered Monday is that the devil actually cared."

The number of reported threats against federal judges and prosecutors has increased dramatically since the Marshals Service began collecting figures in 1979. In the 1980s, there were about 240 complaints a year; in the past seven years, there have been about 700 annually. The service estimates that 1 in 10 threats escalates or turns violent. At least two federal judges have been assaulted since 2001. The rate of violence is higher among state and local judges, who receive less protection. Prosecutors, too, face regular harassment. About eight have been killed in the past 30 years, according to Dan Alsobrooks, former president of the National District Attorneys Association.

In 2001 a new law raised the penalties for threatening federal judges or their families. Since then, funding for judicial security has increased 50%. With the Lefkow murders, some officials are calling for more money. But strategy may be just as important as resources. Courthouses have been fortified since 9/11. But all three murdered federal judges were killed at their homes. Anderson suggests putting cameras near judges' houses. "We're living in a world where so much is known about us," he says. The Marshals Service might also benefit from some changes. In a withering 2004 report, the Department of Justice's inspector general accused the service of using inconsistent protection policies and out-of-date threat assessments.

Judge Lefkow and her four daughters as well as Michael's daughter from a prior relationship are currently under armed federal guard in an undisclosed location. But Lefkow says she intends to return to the bench. Meanwhile, on Internet message boards, white supremacists are buzzing about the murders, continuing to castigate the Lefkows, their children and grandchildren, three of whom are biracial, and at the same time speculating that the killings might be the work of Jews. On Stormfront, an old posting of the Lefkows' home address was still visible four days after the murders. --Reported by Brian Bennett/ Washington, Noah Isackson/Chicago, Marguerite Michaels/East Peoria and Nadia Mustafa/ New York

With reporting by Brian Bennett/ Washington; Noah Isackson/Chicago; Marguerite Michaels/East Peoria; Nadia Mustafa/ New York