I've often wondered why courthouse screening doesn't generate the outrage that airport screening does. They are equally intrusive, yet complaints about airport screening fill the search engine results. Not so with courthouse screening.
In the news today is a report of a shooting at the Lloyd D. George Federal District Courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada, in which a gunman killed a courthouse security officer and wounded a deputy U.S. Marshal. (News report here. And the U.S. Marshals Service statement here.)
I visit a courthouse seldom enough, but each time I get newly annoyed by the indignity of the screening. One has to wonder how prospective jurors perceive this as they line up for mandatory jury duty. Do they harbor any resentment as they are made to remove jewelry, strip off belts and empty their pockets as if they are about to get booked? Does that resentment linger as they sit in the jury box listening to a criminal defense theory about some overzealous law enforcement action?
The resentment over the airport screening is certainly real enough. But if it exists as to courthouse screening it must lurk below the surface. Then we hear about the courthouse shooting today in Las Vegas. The intrusive screening isn't any less annoying, and courthouse shooting instances are extremely rare. But at least we can think of that incident as we try to empathize with the guards' suspicion that everyone is a potential killer.
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