Judges Are Seeking Cover on The Bench

"That's exactly right," Sheriff Hardin said.

Peckler has an application on his desk for a concealed weapons permit that would allow him to bring a gun into the courthouse, which he is wondering whether to submit.

"I'm not opposed to guns. I own guns. But there's something about carrying a gun into churches and courtrooms," he said. "I don't want to give into that mentality. But I guess I'd be a fool not to consider it."

Thirty-five miles north of Danville, in the chambers of U.S. District Court Chief Judge Joseph Hood in Lexington, there's no such hesitation.

"It's with me whenever I move," Hood said after reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a semiautomatic pistol that he is holding in the air. "There are people out there wrapped not too tight. Their bubble is off-center, if you know what I mean."

He added, "These Glocks are good pieces of equipment."

Over in Frankfort, in his office on the second floor of the state Capitol, Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Lambert said he also has considered getting a gun. "Have I done it? No. But I have thought about it," he said. "I can anticipate a situation in which I might be faced with a threat and might need a weapon."

As chief justice, Lambert is also chief executive of the Kentucky court system, overseeing 267 judges, 3,400 employees and courthouses in 120 counties. He said that most of those courthouses have "excellent" security, but he also said, "We're seeing behavior today in court that absolutely would have been unheard of a generation ago. People talk back. Yell back. There's a greater degree of anger.

"I think Family Court is probably the very worst," he added. "Because people are crying to their core."

Back in Danville, the crying core of a 57-year-old man named Ronnie Gay Cornett was revealed in a note he wrote that authorities say was intended to be his eulogy, to be read aloud after he killed himself, his ex-wife, her attorney and Petrie, who had been the judge in his divorce. "Thank you all for coming," is how the handwritten note began. "I would hope everyone would remember me for any other reason than the actions that brought us here. The simple fact is everyone regardless of how strong an individual they are has a breaking point!!!"

The eulogy was just one piece of paper that authorities say Cornett left with a friend. There also were burial instructions, ("Pall bearers no suits"), financial instructions ("I don't reckon I owe anyone else other than what Petrie ordered but argue since we're both dead that goes away"), and an admonition to "Read the 31st psalm" -- a psalm, Petrie said as he sat in his office with a Bible one day recently, "about David being persecuted and his enemies are all around him."

Petrie is an elder in his Presbyterian church. He is also a husband, a father of two young children and lead singer in a classic rock band that practices in the backroom of a cellular phone store, which is where he was when he first heard of the threat against his life.