Since December 2019, John J. McConnell Jr. has served as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island. Before joining the bench, McConnell was a trial lawyer for nearly three decades, during which he handled several high-profile cases, including litigation on behalf of lead-poisoning victims.
In January 2025, McConnell issued an injunction against the Trump administration’s plan to pause federal grants. Since then, McConnell has been the victim of death threats and harassment from political opponents. He was later at the center of the fight over issuing SNAP benefits during the federal government shutdown.
McConnell sat down with Ocean State Media political reporter Ian Donnis to discuss the impact of such threats on the integrity of the courts.
Interview highlights
On the death threats he received after issuing rulings against the Trump administration
John J. McConnell Jr.: I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of this country and you take what comes with that. You know, we entered a sad period where many judges – not just myself, all over the country – faced death threats, faced harassment. It represented to the courts a real concern that the public that was reacting in this way perhaps wasn’t as understanding of what the courts did and what their roles were in our system of government such that they would act in a political way at us, or they would act in a threatening way, or they would attempt to intimidate us.
I was subjected to death threats. My wife was subjected to death threats. My daughter was doxxed by Elon Musk and Laura Loomer. We had pizza deliveries done in the name of a child of a friend (of mine, a) judge who was murdered. Most recently – I haven’t told anyone this yet – my homeowner’s insurance was canceled because impeachment articles had been filed against me. So the repercussions of this kind of activity are, kind of, far and wide and go to the heart of the role of the government.
Look, I think everyone in a position of power from the top on down has a responsibility to tamp things down, to ease tension, to support the security of our judges and other elected officials, and it begins at the top. Judges have been called all sorts of names. We’ve been called traitors; we’ve been called treasonous; we’ve been called idiots; we’ve been dehumanized, from the top right on down. You can’t help but think that that has contributed to the way a portion of the public has acted toward judges. [It] hurts the legitimacy of the court system the way that we need it.
On the importance of transparency in court proceedings after revelations that a federal prosecutor failed to notify a Rhode Island judge about a murder charge against a suspect that the judge was sentencing in a separate case
McConnell: What’s disheartening and hurts the system is when a federal agency like DHS and ICE would issue a press release that contained a known falsity about a judge. In this instance, DHS and ICE put out a press release saying that Judge [Melissa] DuBose released someone that she knew there was a warrant out for... murder. That was a press release that they issued.
Now we find out that they issued it when they knew about [the warrant], and they told the prosecutor not to tell the judge. It tells you that it’s vitally important that our political branches of government are truthful to the judiciary, and that when you begin to not act in that fashion – in a truthful fashion, in an upfront fashion – that bad happens. And if it weren’t corrected, the legitimacy of the court could have been at issue.
On low approval ratings for the U.S. Supreme Court
McConnell: People are discouraged at courts looking at what the Supreme Court has done because they, perhaps, have disagreed with very emotional or social issues that they’ve dealt with. But also, there have been criticisms of the way that the Supreme Court operates on the so-called shadow docket or emergency docket. Recently, in the last few years, the amount of times they’ve issued substantive rulings on an emergency basis has increased dramatically when you just look at it historically. And I think that kind of action – procedural action – can hurt the legitimacy of courts that are about equal protection under the law, that are about due process.
On what he considers his most important case in his seven years as a chief U.S. District Court judge
McConnell: I didn’t have any experience in criminal law before I took the bench, so I’ve actually become fascinated by criminal justice issues. I think about the work that we’ve done toward reforming the criminal justice system – we’ve added alternatives to sentencing. Just statistically looking at things, we in Rhode Island sentence people to less time than the national average, yet at the same time, our recidivism rate is one of the lowest in the country. So we’re sending people to jail less and having better results, which tell us that there are alternatives to incarceration. So when you ask me about one of the greatest accomplishments, it’s each one of those people that I treated as an individual who came before me in the criminal justice system who I was able to look at from a different perspective, who I was able to show empathy toward.
