TUCSON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- More than 100 judges are expected to attend Friday's funeral of U.S. District Judge John Roll, killed in the Tucson mass shooting, a U.S. marshal said.
"I can't give a specific number, but there are about 100-plus judges who are coming in from all over the country, from Supreme Court justices to district judges," U.S. Marshal for Arizona David Gonzales told KTAR-AM, Phoenix.
Security will be tight, Gonzales said, declining to discuss specifics measures. The Marshals Service is the U.S. federal courts' enforcement arm, responsible for protecting court officers and buildings and the effective operation of the judiciary.
A funeral mass will be held at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, the same church where hundreds gathered Thursday for the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Green, the youngest victim of an assault that claimed six lives and left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., battling for her life.
No media will be allowed inside or on church grounds. The burial will be private.
The FBI says Roll, 63, had attended mass at the church Saturday morning and, on his way home, stopped to talk with Giffords at her Congress on Your Corner event about problems of Arizona federal courts' surging caseloads.
Police arrested 22-year-old college dropout Jared Lee Loughner in the shootings.
Roll was known as a conservative man with a reputation as being serious and professional in the courtroom, but lighthearted and smiling off the bench, the Los Angeles Times said.
An Arizona native, he served as a city prosecutor, a federal prosecutor and a state court judge before being appointed to the federal bench by U.S. President George H.W. Bush in 1991. He rose to chief judge for Arizona in 2006.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who recommended Roll to Bush, called him "a man of great qualities and character". Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts remembered him as "a wise jurist who selflessly served Arizona and the nation with great distinction".
President Barack Obama noted Wednesday that Roll's "colleagues described him as the hardest-working judge within the 9th Circuit". UPI
