Here's the problem I have with this whole issue. The judges are sufficiently protected. This incident occurred in a court room with multiple bailiffs present. If this was a case where the accused sought out the judge outside of court, I'd agree with the sentence. This sentence absolves the bailiffs of their woeful failure to do the job which they are paid for. This whole incident should have never occurred. The moment, the prisoner attempted to get up, they should have reacted. If the sentence was 10 years or less, I have no problems with it. 26 years? The judge is having a laugh... People rape, commit manslaughter, even murder and get less time. 26 years for assaulting a judge in court due to the failure of the bailiffs is one of the biggest perversions of justice I've seen recently. On top of all that, tax dollars have to pay for 26 years for this perversion of justice.
I didn't mean specifically them being physically protected, but generally protected from influence or intimidation.
This would have been worse if she were attacked on the street though, as you do have a point, they are quite literally guarded at their jobs most of the time.
But what is being protected is the concepts, not the individual. We label all kinds of things with general terms like "Assault", "Battery," "Fraud", etc. but not every specific crime is treated exactly the same way under these umbrellas, usually for good reasons. (and like I said that, beyond that, doing something on camera with tons of witnesses with clear cut audio, etc. is just idiotic, and that generally will get you more time for whatever anyways)
I do agree the sentence is too strong, just saying throwing around "1 year" is not helping your case. People do much longer than that for similar assaults in certain circumstances. Try randomly jumping an old lady for instance on CCTV and see what your sentence is.
In the end the law is highly subjective partly due to jury trials. The prosecutors are playing a game to maximize sentences, and the game involves "hey what do you think I can get a jury to do?" as much or more as it does "what is this particular crime actually worth sentencing someone over?" I think it all can be really abusive quite commonly.