Slain federal judge John Roll was at the center of Arizona's immigration debate

John. M. Roll, the federal judge killed Saturday in the Tucson shooting that critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), has been at the center of the state's complicated political battle over immigration. In February 2009, Roll received hundreds of threats after he allowed a lawsuit filed by illegal immigrants against a rancher to go forward. "They cursed him out, threatened to kill his family, said they'd come and take care of him. They really wanted him dead," a law enforcement official told The Washington Post in May 2009. Threats against federal judges and prosecutors nationwide have been soaring in recent years. There is no indication he was the gunman's target, and witness accounts describe the shooter as firing at Giffords first. U.S. marshals put Roll, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, under 24-hour protection for about a month. They guarded his home in a secluded area just outside Tucson, screening his mail and escorting him to court, to the gym and even to Mass...more