Julian Mann Completes Term as ABA Judicial Division Chair
For Julian Mann III, the judiciary is both a calling and a cause to which he remains devoted even after his service as chief administrative law judge and director of the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings.
To that end, Mann recently completed service as chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association. During most of his term and over the preceding year as well, Mann also served as chair of the NCBA Judicial Independence Committee.
The volunteer leadership roles occurred after Mann directed the Office of Administrative Hearings for 32 years, during which time he was appointed and reappointed to eight four-year terms by Republican and Democratic chief justices alike, five of them altogether: James Exum Jr., Burley Mitchell Jr., I. Beverly Lake Jr., Sarah Parker, and Mark Martin.
The Judicial Division is “the ABA’s home to judges, lawyers, tribal members, court administrators, academics and students interested in the courts and the justice system.”
“The ABA Judicial Division (JD) is one of those rare entities that is dedicated to advancing and protecting the judiciary,” Mann said. “Much of what the JD does is to provide training and seminars for judges at all levels. Last week I attended the AJEI (Appellate Judges Education Institute) meeting in Boston. Annually, it is considered among the best programing offered anywhere for judges. It is a stellar program that consistently addresses not only appellate issues, but increasingly offers programs for protecting judges at all levels.”
The JD’s mission statement, captured at the outset of the 2022 strategic plan, reads as follows:
The Judicial Division serves as the voice of the judiciary; supports an effective, accessible, fair and impartial justice system; and seeks to improve public trust and understanding of the role of courts in upholding the rule of law, while extending the opportunity for participation to diverse judges throughout America and by communicating effectively with them.
The strategic plan includes seven goals, two of which mirrored much of Mann’s work as chair of the Judicial Independence Committee in regard to being an “effective voice for the judiciary” and striving to “achieve a fair and impartial justice system.
“My goal for my year as Judicial Chair reflects these concepts recorded in our Strategic Plan.” Mann stated in his chair’s column for the February 2024 edition of The Judicial Division Record. Referencing the NCBA’s 2022-23 bar year, Mann continues, “I was tasked by Clayton Morgan, president of the N.C. Bar Association and Foundation, to demystify the judicial selection process as chair of the Judicial Independence Committee.
“I was ably assisted by our former Judicial Division Chair Mark Martin and Appellate Judges Conference Chair Bob Edmonds, among other prominent jurists and lawyers. We conducted a series of Zoom meetings in search of the role of lawyers and judges to preserve the rule of law. We had panels of federal judges, including 4th Circuit Chief Judge and Judicial Division member Al Diaz, former chief justices including Mark Martin, former chief judges of the Court of Appeals, notable lawyers, former university presidents, and the state’s business and legislative leaders.”
The result of those efforts was a resolution adopted by the NCBA Board of Governors comprising various tenets as ideal traits for individuals “serving in or seeking to serve” in the judiciary and for the judiciary as a whole. Mann included the resolution in his Judicial Division Record column.
“For many years it has been unnecessary for our association to address security issues for judges,” Mann stated. “Incidences were low. But the Judicial Independence Committee has for its extensive history addressed many of the same issues that the Judicial Division has addressed.
“Those issues concerned evaluating competency, ethics, and programing for judges and the public. The tenets adopted by our association recognized this trend and sounded the alarm for our membership and for the security of the judiciary.”
An alarm has also been sounded through Goal VII of the Judicial Division Strategic Plan: Promote Strategies To Increase Judicial Security And Provide Resources For Judges And Their Staff. Under his leadership, the Judicial Division authored ABA Resolution 516, which was adopted by the ABA House of Delegates at the 2024 Annual Meeting.
“Dispensing justice invades the lives of individuals and families,” Mann said. “One aspect of the judiciary is that it is designed to protect individual rights. Therefore, to dispense justice requires addressing individuals in a courtroom, unlike the other branches of government who deal with individuals on a more macro level. If the judiciary is hesitant to protect individual liberty, that liberty will soon be lost.”
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Supported by the Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division, the Section on State and Local Government Law, and the Section on Litigation, the resolution reads as follows:
RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to pass the Countering Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act, S.3984 and H.R.8093, 118th Cong. (2024), or any similar legislation establishing a State Judicial Threat Intelligence and Resource Center charged with providing technical assistance and training for heightened judicial security, monitoring threats, developing standardized incident reporting, and creating a national database for reporting, tracking, and the sharing of threat information; and
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association supports placing the State Threat Intelligence and Resource Center within the existing State Justice Institute.
“There are winners and losers in the courtroom,” Mann said. “The winners feel vindicated. The losers feel resentment. Sometimes, the latter blame the judges, who then become a target. Respect for nonviolence has diminished. The statistics bear this out as the number of incidences of attacks has demonstrably increased. When this occurs, society must respond to protect judges who in turn guard individual liberty.
“This legislation protects state judges by identifying those who have been assaulted or threatened. States must officially capture these facts and report it in a national clearinghouse. There the incident can be analyzed. Causes can be determined and solutions recommended. As these incidences increase, more judges are placed at risk. This legislation must be enacted in response to these heightened risks. Simply stated, this Congressional legislation protects the judges who protect individual liberty.”
Mann cites several recent instances of threats and acts of violence against judges and court personnel, including:
- Judge Esther Salas, a United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey, whose son was killed by an attacker, answering the front doorbell.
- A Maryland state court judge, Andrew Wilkinson, was gunned down and murdered in his driveway after presiding over a child custody case involving the now-deceased suspect.
- Retired Wisconsin Judge John Roemer was killed by a criminal defendant whom he had sentenced to prison fifteen years earlier.
- Texas Judge Julie Kocurek was shot four times outside her home by a defendant who had appeared in her courtroom weeks before the shooting. She survived.
- A criminal defendant launched himself over the bench to attack a Nevada judge during a sentence hearing earlier this year.
Across the entire United States, Mann noted, judges are subject to an increasing number of threats and violent attacks every day. According to the United States Marshals Service, judges and court officials faced over 4,500 threats, a 400% increase since 2015.
“In September of 2021 in a rural North Carolina county district courtroom,” Mann writes, “a criminal defendant with a rather extensive criminal record, who after discharging his court-appointed attorney, threw a chair at the bailiff as the judge and court personnel rushed out of the courtroom. As the bailiff attempted to subdue this defendant, a struggle ensued and the bailiff screamed that this defendant was trying to take his sidearm.
“A local police officer who had been testifying in this very case came to the bailiff’s assistance and eventually had to shoot and kill this defendant in the courtroom right in front of the bench. As far as I am aware there was no national reporting of this incident. Most of us at the bar were unaware of this incident until recently. The judge and court staff were not harmed. But both law enforcement officers suffered injuries in the incident.”
In his concluding statement to the ABA House of Delegates prior to adoption of the resolution, Mann stated:
Passage of this Resolution will provide support to the efforts currently being made in Congress to advance the cause of providing and increasing necessary support to judicial security. The current Congressional legislation would address the growing number of threats and attacks on the judiciary by providing support to state and local judges around judicial security. While the federal judiciary can benefit from the dedicated efforts of the United States Marshals Service, the state and local judiciary does not have a similar protection in place. The Countering Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act creates a central, national, and comprehensive entity to provide vital resources in protecting the people that make up our state and local judicial system.
Mann previously served as president of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary and chair of the ABA’s National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary. He was honored in 2021 for his service to the State of North Carolina with the Friend of the Court Award, which is the highest honor presented by the state’s judicial branch, and the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, which is the highest honor for state service presented by the Office of the Governor.
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.