‘Before judge’s assassination, lawmakers knew there was a problem,” read the title of a column in the Baltimore Banner soon after a Maryland judge was fatally shot in his driveway on Oct. 19. Hours before the shooting, the judge had awarded custody of the suspected shooter’s four children to his estranged wife. Authorities described the judge’s killing as a “targeted attack.”

Earlier in the year, Maryland General Assembly legislators introduced a bill that would have helped to prevent the disclosure of the home address and telephone number of judges in the state. That legislation was introduced in the wake of an assassination attempt at the Maryland home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022. Although that bill did not pass, Maryland legislators are now pledging to make protecting judges’ personal information a top priority during their next legislative session.

Regrettably, threats and attacks against judges are not new. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, the number of threats directed toward federal judges and other protected persons (including federal prosecutors and court officials) rose from 592 in 2003, to 4,511 in 2021.

Hawaii’s judges have not been immune to this unsettling trend. Since 2012, the number of threats and inappropriate communications reported by state court judges has increased tenfold.

Recent targeted attacks against judges have also filled headlines. In July 2020, a man opened fire at the home of a federal district court judge in New Jersey after appearing in a case before the judge months earlier. During the shooting, the judge’s husband was critically wounded, and her son was killed. Last June, a retired judge in Wisconsin was shot and killed in his home by a man who the judge had sentenced more than 15 years earlier.

Given the growing threat to judges, last year President Joe Biden signed a law that provides certain protections so that federal judges’ personal information — such as a home address — does not appear online. But the law is limited to federal judges, and does not apply to the posting of a judge’s personal information by state agencies. To fill these gaps, a growing number of states have enacted laws to protect their judges. Hawaii should become one of those during the 2024 legislative session.

In 2022, Gov. David Ige signed into law Act 46 creating, for a limited time, a judicial security task force. In Act 46, the state Legislature recognized that, “given the availability of personal information of judges … on the Internet, additional measures are needed to ensure the safety of judges and judiciary personnel.”

Our Legislature, like the Maryland General Assembly, has recognized the problem. The federal government and states across the country have charted a viable path forward. Respectfully, our Legislature should prioritize legislation to protect judges’ personal information in the 2024 legislative session. Our system of government depends upon judges being able to administer justice based on the law and facts before them, without fear of harm to them or their families.

Mark E. Recktenwald is chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court; Derrick K. Watson is chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii; Richard R. Clifton is a judge from Hawaii on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and immediate past president of the Federal Judges Association.