To the Point

How Vulnerable are America's Judges?

Much of downtown Atlanta was shut down this morning after Judge Rowland Barnes was shot and killed in his courtroom. Police say the defendant in a brutal rape case grabbed a deputy's gun, did the shooting and escaped by carjacking an automobile. Other courthouse personnel also were killed. Today's shooting death comes less than two weeks after the mother and husband of a federal Judge were murdered in Chicago. Those killings are now being attributed to a delusional man who said in a suicide note that Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow had wronged him by dismissing his claims of medical malpractice. We talk to judges, criminologists and experts in security and hate crimes about security in the judicial system. Making News: Courtroom Shooting in Atlanta In Atlanta this morning, 64 year-old Judge Rowland Barnes was shot to death in his courtroom by a defendant who grabbed a deputy sheriff-s gun. Brian Nichols, on trial for rape, also killed the court clerk and another deputy on his way down eight flights of stairs and into a nearby parking lot, where he carjacked an automobile. Bruce Kennedy, News Director at NPR affiliate WABE in Atlanta, has more on one of the largest manhunts in Atlanta's history. Reporter's Notebook: One Year after Train Bombings, Spanish Clerics Issue bin Laden Fatwa One year after terrorist bombs killed 191 people on Madrid's train system, the Islamic Commission of Spain has issued "the world's first fatwa" against Osama bin Laden, and has urged other Muslim leaders to denounce him as well. The Commission represents about a million Muslims who worship at 200, mostly Sunni, mosques, which account for 70 percent of the mosques in Spain. UCLA Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl is an expert on Islamic law.