Safety must take higher priority in Maine’s courts.

Underfunded, understaffed and underutilized, upgraded security tools at Maine’s courthouses are sitting dormant most of the time, daring someone to carry a weapon in and dispense his or her own justice.

It’s not a case of being overly dramatic. Courthouse security around the state is always porous and usually nonexistent. Despite having metal detectors in every courthouse – paid for with money directed to improve security after the Sept. 11 attacks – there aren’t enough people to run them. The extra federal funds can’t be used to pay salaries, so the machines sit gathering dust while weapons are carried in.

The numbers speak for themselves: Out of 19,680 days that Maine’s courts collectively were open in 2004, guards screened visitors on just 74. On those days, they confiscated more than 1,400 weapons, including guns. Another 29 people saw the screeners and turned around without being searched – not a good sign – and leaving only speculation on what sort of contraband sent them off in the opposite direction.

Maine has just 85 full-time court security officers to protect 41 courts, and rotates screenings around the state randomly. The metal detectors in the Lewiston District Court were used just 23 days between May 2004 and February 2005. The rest of the time, a person could walk in unchallenged and unsearched.

Recent examples of courthouse violence illustrate the peril.

In March, a prisoner wrestled a weapon away from a courthouse guard in Atlanta and shot to death a judge, a court reporter and a sheriff’s deputy, along with a federal agent at his home, during an escape. Without security screenings, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where a gun could be smuggled to a criminal, someone with nothing to lose and freedom to gain by shooting his way out of custody.

People going to court are under duress, even in the simplest cases. Something has gone wrong in their lives, and often they’re in court facing an uncertain, and often unpleasant, outcome. Emotions are raw, and fuses are short. It’s one of the absolute worst places for a weapon, and it’s just a matter of time before a serious incident reverses the state’s good luck.

“Unfortunately, I call this management by crisis, because they’re not going to put money in until something happens,” state security chief Michael Coty told the Sun Journal. At that point, it’s too late.

During her 2005 State of the Judiciary Speech, Chief Justice Leigh Saufley pleaded for more state support for security, saying that, as it stands, “We cannot yet assure that those who are threatened with violence, and those who fear for their lives, will be safe inside the halls of justice.”

One time – one deranged person with a gun – and Maine makes national headlines while innocent people pay the price for the state’s inattention. What will state leaders say then, knowing that they could have pre-empted the assault?

State money is in short supply, but crying poverty won’t make courthouses safer, and it won’t satisfy an angry community that recognizes that during this time of heightened security the government was all talk and no muscle.