Protecting Jurors' Safety with Anonymity

Defendants, journalists, and the public alike are all dying to get a peek into the jury deliberation room to understand why and how juries decide the fate of a defendant. It is for that reason that jurors are often interviewed after high-publicity trials and questioned about their decision. While we all want to know who was on those juries, revealing the identity of jurors to the defendants and the public can be accompanied by risks to the juror's privacy and safety.

This risk is present, not only in highly publicized trials, like the Roger Stone trial or the Casey Anthony trial, but also in ordinary criminal cases. No matter the level of publicity, defendants out on their own recognizance can still come after jurors, and defendants in jail can place calls to threaten the jurors who put him in there. This can not only scare jurors away from their homes, but can also deter jurors from serving on a jury in the first place. With infinitely many excuses already present deterring people from performing their civic duty, jurors should be assured that they need not fear for their safety because of their jury service.

Because of this risk, every federal judicial circuit, excluding the tenth circuit has approved the court's discretion to maintain the anonymity of jurors both to the public and to the defendant.* California has gone a step further, requiring that juror's identities be sealed at the close of a criminal trial and only be released upon a showing of good cause and no objections from the jurors themselves.

This potential anonymity has been controversial, as it was long believed that it was necessary that identities of jurors be known to the public to ensure that the defendant receives a fair trial. The belief was that jurors needed to be held accountable for their decisions on the jury, to ensure that the ensuing trial was fair. It was not until a 1977 case that a judge first sealed jurors' identities for their protection. Since then, anonymous juries have become increasingly common, having been used in the trials of El Chapo and the Branch Davidians, along with many less public cases.

When jurors' identities are sealed, questions arise regarding the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial, as jurors may associate the requirement of their anonymity with the dangerousness of the defendant. Sealing juror's identities prior to the start of the trial further challenges the presumption that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Conversely, if jurors' fear of retaliation from the defendant or those associated with him, those jurors will still be unable to be impartial. It is essential that any extraneous forces influencing the jurors' opinions are removed from the deliberation room whenever possible.

When risks to jurors' safety are present, it is necessary to protect the identities of these juror, as a fear of one's safety is another unnecessary deterrent against jury duty. However, depending on the risks that the publicity, or the defendant himself presents to the jury, jurors' information should be kept from the defendant or the public as necessary.

*See, e.g., United States v. Ramírez-Rivera, 800 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2015); United States v. Barnes, 604 F.2d 121, 130 (2d Cir. 1979); United States v. Scarfo, 850 F.2d 1015 (3d Cir. 1988); United States v. Dinkins, 691 F.3d 358 (4th Cir. 2012); United States v. Krout, 66 F.3d 1420 (5th Cir. 1995); United States v. Deitz, 577 F.3d 672 (6th Cir. 2009); United States v. Crockett, 979 F.2d 1204 (7th Cir. 1992); United States v. Darden, 70 F.3d 1507 (8th Cir. 1995); United States v. Shryock, 342 F.3d 948 (9th Cir. 2003); United States v. Ross, 33 F.3d 1507 (11th Cir. 1994); United States v. Edmond, 52 F.3d 1080 (D.C. Cir. 1995); see generally Christopher Keleher, The Repercussions of Anonymous Juries, 44 U.S.F. L. Rev. 531, 570 n.1 (2010).