Sheriff Rochelle Bilal hit with second court order over deputy shortage. She blames the judges.

For Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire.

A court order issued Tuesday holds Bilal at fault for failing to fully comply with the terms of the city judges’ December directive requiring her to fix a security crisis that left courtrooms without deputies and defendants languishing in holding cells.

The new order, issued by the Administrative Governing Board of the First Judicial District, a panel of judges that oversees Philadelphia court operations, says Bilal has not done enough to address the deputy shortage, resulting in “direct harm to the proper functioning and safe operation and administration of the courts.”

The document gives Bilal 30 days to draw up plans to boost deputy recruitment, including the creation of a new sheriff’s academy within city limits.

The pair of orders are a rare chastisement of a local elected official by the city’s judiciary, and reflect a growing dissatisfaction with Bilal’s inability to retain staff and attract new deputies to an increasingly dysfunctional office.

Bilal and her spokesperson did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

On Monday, the sheriff’s campaign, Friends of Rochelle Bilal, sent a fundraising email to supporters that blamed the judges. The email cited a 2020 report into nepotism and a racist work culture in Philly courts.

“The very people demanding more security protection are the ones creating the hostile environment in the first place,” the email stated. The report was conducted by the Washington-based Center for Urban and Racial Equality (CURE) at the request of the courts.

The Inquirer reported in September that assaults, threats, and other security incidents had skyrocketed under Bilal, increasing threefold last year compared with 2019, the year before she took office.

Defendants have been sitting in the basement of the Criminal Justice Center for hours because deputies were unavailable to escort them to trials and hearings. Civilian staff were left to police some courtrooms without law enforcement assistance.

“I don’t understand how it got this bad, where we don’t have security in our courtrooms,” one judge told The Inquirer at the time.

Bilal had claimed the problem was being exaggerated. But the administrative judicial panel, citing the uptick in incidents, in December issued an ultimatum to her to resolve those security lapses within 90 days.

Sheriff deputies were subsequently shuffled from specialized units — like those charged with warrant service, or internal affairs — into the courthouse security rotation. These changes had the effect of quickly bolstering deputy ranks, but soon caused disruptions elsewhere.

Earlier this month, the sheriff’s office relocated its entire warrant unit to the Family Court building from its prior home inside the city’s probation department on Market Street, where deputies had doubled as building security under an agreement brokered with her predecessor.

The removal of those deputies forced the courts to abruptly close probation offices to the public and switch to a virtual check-in system. All in-person drug testing was also temporarily paused. (Urine screenings have since resumed, court officials confirmed.)

Bilal has since stated that she believes she is legally required to secure only courthouses, and not other court-related facilities, such as the probation office. Yet the latest order specifically cites “the temporary closure of 714 Market Street” (the probation office) as “a direct harm” to the operation of the courts. It requests a plan from Bilal to restore staffing to that building.

The sheriff has repeatedly complained that she is hamstrung by narrow hiring windows, a deputy academy that is hours from the city, and an inability to compete with salaries offered by larger law enforcement agencies. Her office has said it can take “2-3 years” to hire a deputy and has complained about inadequate funding from the city.

However, the Sheriff’s Office ended the last fiscal year with a $1 million payroll surplus due to unfilled positions, and the city’s finance director has said the sheriff can hire up to 307 deputies regardless of the budget impact, according to a city spokesperson.

Between early 2023 and the end of 2024, the number of deputies and deputy recruits employed by the office continued to drop, from 320 to 290.

Judges have taken notice. The Tuesday order asks for a report identifying “unfilled but budgeted deputy positions” and “efforts made by the Sheriff to recruit and hire deputies to fill them.”

Elected in 2019, Bilal has presided over a string of institutional failures involving the issuance of protective orders, administration of sheriff sales, deed processing, and financial mismanagement. She has meanwhile embarked on community outreach efforts and launched “season two” of a podcast, in some cases using an office slush fund of taxpayer dollars that are withheld from the city’s general fund.

The consequences of Bilal’s failure to comply with the terms of the latest order are up to the judiciary. They could include fines or even removal from office.

In Dauphin County last year, an elected clerk resigned rather than face contempt hearings linked to a similar court order issued over office mismanagement.