In March, I talked with an Atlanta judge who related the details of the shooting that she knew through the courthouse. The suspect allegedly was unhandcuffed, and he disarmed the guard who was escorting him and shot her, then he walked through the judge's empty chambers and entered the courtroom through the judge's chamber's door. According to the judge, Judge Barnes never saw it coming, and, if the prosecutor were in the courtroom, she was also a likely target.

As bad as this shooting was for all of us who wonder about whether it could happen to us in a courthouse, it still galls me that Reps. Cornyn and DeLay capitalized on Judge Barnes' murder as a supposed reaction to activist judges as reported on Daily Kos. Every time I hear a NeoCon say "activist judge," I think of these Congressional idiots exploiting the dead for political gain. I think I can hear late Senator Joe McCarthy laughing in hell.

Four people are dead, and thirteen people have to live with the knowledge that their apparent failures led to those deaths.