In the wake of the attempted killing of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh last week and the targeted murder of a retired circuit judge in Wisconsin earlier this month, some of the leading experts who study the history of public figure assassinations in the United States warn that the nation's judiciary is increasingly at risk of violence and retribution.

While political assassinations remain rare in the U.S., the threat to judges appears to be on the rise, according to a 2016 study of public figure attacks. The study by forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy and former FBI profiler Molly Amman, which looked at public figure attacks between 1995 and 2015, found that state and federal judges were the subjects of 16 percent of the attacks they identified. An earlier Secret Service study looking at public figure attacks between 1949 and 1996 found federal judges were the subject of only about 5 percent of attacks during that period.

"I think the risk toward the judiciary is very real at the local, state, and federal level," Meloy, who consults with the FBI, told National Review. "Comparatively to the second half of the 20^th Century, there has been an increase in attacks on the judiciary in the United States. And I think our data speaks clearly to the need for body protection and personal security around the judges."

A 2020 poll of 572 judges conducted by the National Judicial College found that nearly three-quarters said they are not satisfied with the security measures taken by their court, and 84 percent believe the security for their families is inadequate. One Colorado judge told pollsters that with minimal planning "anyone could walk in off the street and blow my brains out without resistance." Another judge, commenting anonymously, stated, "Our court does nearly nothing. I carry a handgun with me everywhere."

The U.S. Marshals Service, which had deputies outside Kavanaugh's home the night of the alleged plot, reports there were more than 4,500 threats against the courts last year, a 387 percent increase over 2015 when there were just over 900 threats, the Washington Examiner reported last week.

Last month, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to provide around-the-clock security to the families of Supreme Court justices after the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization draft leak sparked protests outside the conservative justices' homes. The measure is stalled in the House, where Democrats are considering a proposal that also would provide enhanced security for court staff, a nonstarter for Senate Republicans. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has accused Democratic leaders of intentionally blocking the bill, and in the process "jeopardizing people's lives" and "jeopardizing the safety of the Supreme Court."

While the attempted assassination of Kavanaugh appears on its face to be political – the alleged plotter, Nicholas John Roske, told authorities he was inspired in part by the leaked Dobbs draft that would overturn Roe v. Wade and by Kavanaugh's legal views on guns – most recent attacks on judges appear to be carried out by criminals seeking revenge or who have a personal grudge.

Douglas Uhde the man who killed former Juneau County Circuit Judge John Roemer in Wisconsin earlier this month had been sentenced to six years in prison by Roemer. Uhde also had a hit list that included Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

In April, a California conman was convicted of engaging in a plot to kill U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford who'd sent him to prison, along with other law enforcement officials. John Arthur Walthall told an undercover agent he wanted Guilford to suffer a "nice painful death" by "shoving him in an [expletive] woodchipper," according to a New York Post report.

In 2020, anti-feminist lawyer Roy Den Hollander, disguised as a delivery driver, showed up at the New Jersey home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas intent on assassinating her, but instead shot and killed her 20-year-old son, and injured her husband. Hollander, who killed himself after the attack, was allegedly upset with the way that Salas had handled a case he had been involved in. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor also was on Hollander's hit list.

Arie Perliger, the director of the graduate program in security studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said he sees the political attack on Kavanaugh as fundamentally different than the other recent attacks on judges in criminal cases.

"Those who are killing judges because they feel they were treated unfairly during a trial, this is something personal," said Perliger, who has studied political assassinations and domestic extremism. "They feel that justice was not done to them personally. They don't care about the public. They don't care about the community. They don't care about policies."

Political assassins, on the other hand, "believe they would become at least appreciated by some of the public," Perliger said.

At this early stage, Meloy is hesitant to interpret the plot on Kavanaugh as purely political. "I think as you learn more information about the case, you're going to see a deeper level of personal grievance for this individual," he said.

Meloy, Perliger, and other leading experts on assassinations, agree that there is no established profile for a public figure attacker, though people who attack celebrities and sport stars tend to have different motivations than political assassins. When asked if Roske fits the mold for a political assassin, Perliger said, "To be honest with you, I'm not sure that there is a mold."

While Meloy's study found that public figure attackers were almost always male, they ranged in age from 17 to 78. The Secret Service study of U.S. assassinations between 1949 and 1996 found that attackers were often well educated, with about half having attended college. Few had histories of arrests for violent crimes or crimes that involved weapons, and few had ever been to prison before their attack or planned attack. Most were described as social isolates.

While many of the attackers in that earlier study had histories of serious depression or despair, few had told a mental health staff member that they were considering an attack.

"Persons who see themselves as doing well in life rarely attempt assassinations. Almost all American assassins, attackers, and would-be attackers were persons who had – or believed themselves to have had – difficulty coping with problems in their lives," according to the Secret Service study. "Each of these men and women, at some point, came to see an attack of a prominent person of public status as a solution, or a way out, of their problems."

Meloy said that when you peel back the surface explanations for most public figure attacks, "invariably there will be personal issues," typically tied to a grievance, "meaning that there's been some kind of loss in work or love that is then attributed to the target."

Research has found that public figure attackers engage in attacks for a variety of reasons, including to attain notoriety or infamy, to avenge a perceived wrong, to bring national attention to a perceived problem, to save the country, and sometimes to be killed by law enforcement. Meloy said that the deep identifications many people have now with political issues also can motivate more extremist behavior.

"Among those who attack, the narcissism used to be, I will become famous if I attack," Meloy said. "The narcissism among attackers that we found is that they feel personally entitled to carry out the attack because of their grievance. In other words, they feel in a sense almost a righteousness that they can mount this attack because fo their personal grievance."

Perliger said political assassins "see themselves as people who are standing at the front lines of their ideological camp, people who are willing to make the next step, or willing to sacrifice for their political camp, for their ideological convictions."

Roske, of Simi Valley, traveled from California to Maryland, and arrived outside Kavanaugh's home early Wednesday last week wearing black clothes and carrying a backpack and a suitcase containing a pistol, a tactical knife, pepper spray, hiking boots with padded soles, and other gear. After he was spotted by two U.S. Marshals outside Kavanaugh's home, Roske texted with his sister and deliberated for a half hour before he called 911 on himself. According to recordings released last week, Roske told a dispatcher that he needed psychiatric help and that he had been "hospitalized multiple times." He said he'd been having "thoughts" for "a long time," and he’d come from California "to act on them." He told authorities he was contemplating "how to give his life purpose."

Friends, former classmates, and co-workers described Roske after his arrest as a friendly young man, who was "a little socially awkward" and "flew under the radar." None of the people who spoke to National Review said they had reason to believe that Roske would be a threat to anyone. Roske's grandfather told a local TV station that his grandson was a "good kid," and the allegations against him are "extremely" out of character for him.

Zack Smith, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and a legal fellow with the Heritage Foundation, said that even though Roske called 911 on himself, it remains "a very serious case."

"I'm sure what his attorneys are going to say is he abandoned the attempt, basically, before he had an opportunity to follow through," said Smith, who described that as a tough argument. Caselaw in the Fourth Circuit, which includes Maryland, says that if a police presence causes a defendant to give up on a crime, it does not constitute an abandonment of an attempt.

"He showed up with weapons at the justice's home after having traveled across the country," Smith said. "This wasn't like somebody that just thought about doing this, and took a cab ride 15 minutes down the road or something. This took a lot of planning. And there were very substantial steps towards consummating this action."

Smith said Roske will likely receive a mental health examination and have a competency hearing, which will help to determine how his case will proceed. If Roske is deemed competent to stand trial, Smith suspects prosecutors will "do their best to hold him accountable for his actions," to ensure he can't threaten anyone else, and to make sure that others understand that threatening a judge is unacceptable.

"Regardless of whether he's found competent or not, I suspect Roske himself will not be released on the street anytime soon," Smith said.

Smith said he is more concerned about the safety of Supreme Court justices after Roske's plot against Kavanaugh was exposed. It highlights the need for Attorney General Merrick Garland and the U.S. Department of Justice to send a message, he said. It is against federal law to picket or parade in front of a judge's home “with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge.” Protest organizers have tried to do "walk-by protests" to dance around the law.

"I think it would be helpful if Merrick Garland would actually enforce the existing law that is on the books, and send the message that trying to intimidate justices, or any judge, really, is inappropriate, and as a society we're not going to tolerate that," Smith said.

Kavanaugh's neighbors have described the protesters as loud, abusive, and intimidating, and said that dealing with them has been "a horrific experience."

Meloy said that it's "very disturbing to me that we've moved to that place where instead of being able to be respectful of political differences, people that don't see things as we do will be labeled as an unbeliever or somehow treasonous or a traitor to the country, which I think is a very dark trail that we potentially can move down as a society."

Perliger said he was surprised at how little media attention the plot against Kavanaugh has received in the mainstream press. The New York Times buried the story in its print edition, and the plot wasn't mentioned on the ABC, CBS, CNN, or NBC Sunday shows. Conservatives have argued that mainstream outlets would likely have provided more prominent and robust coverage if the threat had been made against a left-wing justice.

"I'm just thinking about how much this is a reflection of people's accepting the fact that our political climate is violent," Perliger said. "It's not really news anymore. It's not really surprising anymore."

"Do you think [President Joe] Biden could have nominated a liberal replacement if something were to happen to Kavanaugh? Think about what would have happened in the country," Perliger added, laying out a scenario where radicals on both sides target justices as a means of changing the court's dynamics. "There's many on the right who would say, 'So that's how we replace judges? Okay.'"