Groundbreaking Judge Turned Tragedy into Change

After her only child was murdered at her home in an attack aimed at her, Judge Esther Salas advocated successfully for legislation to enhance security for judges nationwide. She will be inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni on April 24.

Esther Salas often says that our experiences shape who we are.

The youngest of five children born to Mexican and Cuban parents, she grew up in Union City, New Jersey, where as a child she once slept on a beach lounge chair at an uncle’s home after a fire destroyed her family’s small apartment. She also recalls taking days off from school to accompany her single mother to social services offices, translating English into Spanish for her. Despite the challenges, Salas and her four siblings all would go on to college.

“For better or worse, you learn some resilience,” says Salas, who earned an undergraduate degree in political science at Rutgers College and a juris doctor at Rutgers Law School in Newark. “Those moments of injury, then repair, helped me later with the biggest challenge of my life. It all was getting me ready for the worst day of my life.”

For Salas, that day is July 19, 2020. She and her husband, Mark Anderl, were celebrating their son Daniel’s 20th birthday at their New Jersey home.

“The weekend was a glorious one,” Salas said in a video statement weeks after the tragedy. “It was filled with love and laughter and smiles."

Until the doorbell rang. A man posing as a delivery driver opened fire, killing Daniel, her only child, and wounding Mark.

The gunman, Roy Den Hollander, was a self-proclaimed men’s rights lawyer who fled the scene and later took his own life in upstate New York. Authorities believe Hollander may have been targeting others, finding a list of judges and doctors in his rental car.

Putting Grief into Action

Everyone would have understood if Salas decided to hang up her robe after the tragedy, but she took a different path. It wasn’t always easy or without second thoughts.

“In the beginning, I was determined to get back to work because this individual took the most important thing from me, and I couldn’t let him take anything else,” Salas says. “But you know, I’m human and when you go back, you're trying to resume a life that is completely different.”

Salas kept a black and white photo of Daniel in her office closet. The photo greeted her in the morning and when she left at the end of the day, it was always a reminder of why she worked so hard. After his death, seeing Daniel’s image sometimes “felt like a punch in the face.”

“It’s not always smooth,” she says. “To know that my job really caused the early end of his beautiful life on earth is difficult, but you really have to stay in the present moment and really try to tease out all the good that has come from a tragedy like ours.”

A coalition of donors and friends of Salas’s family have created two endowed scholarships at Rutgers honoring her son’s memory: the Daniel Anderl Memorial Endowed Scholarship, which is awarded to Rutgers Law School students in Newark and Camden, and the Daniel Anderl Judicial Protection Project Endowed Scholarship, which supports undergraduates at the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice in Newark.

“Out of this senseless tragedy, we see light and we see this ability for students to go on and get an education in memory of my son,” Salas told the Rutgers Law School’s Power of Attorney podcast.

Colleagues and friends in the federal trial court in Newark also pitched in to create a food pantry on the courthouse’s first floor and named it “Danny’s Pantry,” in honor of Daniel. The pantry assists individuals and families in the court’s Pretrial Opportunity ​Program and ReNew Reentry Program, which help pretrial participants and released federal prisoners reintegrate back into society.

Protecting Judges

Salas pushed hard to strengthen judicial security measures after the shooting. The Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act, enacted in December 2022, bars federal agencies and private companies from publicly sharing the personal information of federal judges and their families. It also mandates those details be removed upon a judge’s written request, prohibits data brokers from trading this information, and sets up state and local programs to enhance judicial security.

“It’s important for our justice system and for our democracy to continue to push for the protection of judicial officers at every level in this country,” Salas says.

She says her work as a judge is far from done. “There’s so much I enjoy about the job. I see myself continuing to pursue the things that give me purpose.”

Salas, who also worked as a public defender, says she is “humbled and honored” by the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni recognition, calling herself a “proud member of the Rutgers family.”

“People often say that success will be measured by the school you attend,” Salas says. “However, I think it has more to do with the student and the school that student is lucky to attend. When you have a school like Rutgers, it makes you feel at home, like you’re part of a community, and it’s that combination that ensures success.”

Judge Salas is one of five new inductees who will be formally enshrined in the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni in a ceremony starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 24, at the Palace at Somerset Park, 333 Davidson Avenue, Somerset, New Jersey. For more information, visit the Hall of Distinguished Alumni page.

Nominator’s Remarks

“Judge Salas is an example of a public servant who thinks about how the law, justice, and society are concepts that must work in concert with one another in order for our nation to succeed. Her extraordinary leadership, on and off the bench, is exactly the right role model for our students at Rutgers Law School and Rutgers University.”

 —Jeffrey Robinson RC’95, ENG’95, Rutgers University–Newark interim chancellor and Prudential Chair at Rutgers Business School

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