CBA Record July-August 2018

“The idea [of using numbers] makes the jury members free of any fear of identification and influences that might impact their decision.” — Anonymous Juror In a jury trial, fulfilling the purpose of the justice systemrequires a balance of due process and the interest of jurors’ safety and privacy. To ensure a fair trial, the court must make certain nothing interferes with the jury’s ability to remain impartial, study the evidence, and apply the law. This article considers how jurors’ stress caused by privacy and safety concerns in the digital of age of instant information affects the fairness of the judicial system. It looks at how empaneling no-name juries could ameliorate these concerns while striking an adequate balance between the defendant’s due process rights and the media’s right to information, while posing the question: Is it time for the Cook County court system to permanently implement no-name juries?

A jury is considered “no-name” or “anonymous” when information regarding the jurors is public, such as their ethnicity, age, level of education, and other background information, with the exception of the jurors’ identities. To empanel an anonymous jury, the court typically assigns a number to all persons called for jury service and refers to jurors by their number from the moment they enter the courtroom until they are discharged from jury service. Regardless of its applause or criticism, the purpose of no-name juries has remained the same since its inception in United States v. Barnes, 604 F.2d 121 (2d Cir. N.Y. 1979): “protecting juror’s pri- vacy, safety and well-being.” Christopher Keleher, Th e Repercussions of Anonymous Juries, 44 U.S.F. L. Rev. 531 (2010). No-name juries “protect the identity and privacy of the jurors and protect jurors, witnesses, and parties from unnecessary commotion, confusion, or influence.” State v. Ross, 174 P.3d 628, 630 (Utah 2007). Though designed to protect jurors from outside influence and the fear of retaliation, critics have contended that no-name juries are both an infringement of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of an impartial jury and the presumption of innocence, as well as the media’s First Amendment right of access to criminal trials. Eric Wertheim, Anonymous Juries, 54 Fordham L. Rev. 981, 982 (1986). Recently, these issues have been addressed. In 2008, in United States v. Lawson, the court stated “the Con- stitution does not [hold] that [a] defendant [has] a right to be informed of jurors’ identities” and “jurors’ names would remain confidential [in this case].” Laura N. Wegner, Juror Anonymity in Criminal Trials: The Media, the Defendant, and the Juror-Providing for the Rights of All Interested Parties, 3 Alb. Gov’t L. Rev. 429, 444- 445 (2008) citing Lawson, 535 F.3d 434, 440 (2008). In the same year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in United States v.Wecht ruled that the names of both prospective and actual jurors must be disclosed. This court reasoned that, histori- cally, juries were “selected from populations in which most people [knew] each other” and that the voir dire has historically been an open proceeding, so the identities of juries were traditionally public information. 537 F.3d at 223-24.

The advent of interconnected media–continuous television news reports and social media–has created a new arena for public scrutiny of jurors. Courts and commentators have addressed this problematic issue. David S. Willis, Juror Privacy: The Compromise Between Judicial Discretion and the First Amendment, 37 Suffolk U.L. Rev. 1195, 1200 (2004). In United States v. Black, the court stated that “open access to juror [identities] during the pendency of trial . . . [actually] enhances the risk” that jurors will not be “free of any outside influence” and will not function in secrecy, as they should. Releasing juror names during the pendency of trial in cases which garner intense national and international media attention threatens the jurors’ ability absorb evidence and to base their ruling only on the evidence presented at the trial. See United States v. Black, 483 F. Supp. 2d 618, 627 (N.D. Ill. 2007).The court reasoned that the disclosure enhances the possibility of contact to the jurors from third-parties, and this “contact is presumptively prejudicial to [a] Defendants’ right to a fair trial.” Wegner (citing Black) . The “external influences” of the media and public will “be borne by [jurors’] families, friends, co-workers and employers,” if their identities are disclosed. Use of no-name juries in theory and practice Despite the debate on its effect on constitutional rights, nameless juries have progressed from a judicial anomaly to a well-established and heavily used departure from traditional juries. Abraham Abramovsky & Jonathan I. Edelstein, Anonymous Juries: In Exi- gent Circumstances Only , 13 St. John’s J. Legal Comment 457, 465 (1999). What matters in jury selection is whether the jurors are impartial and represent the diverse cross-section of American society as it exists within the particular community; their names and addresses are irrelevant when the parties are informed and voir dire is available. Seth A. Fersko, United States v. Wecht: When Anonymous Juries, the Right of Access, and Judicial Discretion Collide , 40 Seton Hall L. Rev. 763, 809 (2010). In Cook County, Judge Charles P. Burns addressed this notion in the high-profile case of People v. William Balfour . The victims

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