Dating back to the 11th century, public juries played a key role in the administration of justice. But as part of a growing trend to protect jurors' identities, clerks in Connecticut's federal courts have been refusing to release to the public the names and addresses of the members of a sitting jury.

"It's a ridiculous rule," said Norman Pattis, a Bethany lawyer with an expertise in constitutional rights. "It smacks of the sort of secret proceeding that caused so much furor in the state courts." The public can walk into any courtroom during jury selection and hear the juror prospects voice their names, hometowns, jobs and more. But don't try to check the names or spellings with a federal clerk afterward. "So if you're not there, why should the court make it more difficult to get?" said Alan Neigher, a Westport lawyer who specializes in First Amendment issues. "Since it is done in open court, I don't know why that information isn't available as a public document. I don't understand the rationale. All this came as a surprise to U.S. District Judge Alvin W. Thompson, who is reviewing the federal court's jury policy in Connecticut. "As a general matter my understanding is the names and hometowns of a sitting jury would be available if you requested it," said Thompson, who contacted the Connecticut Post following requests for comment from Chief U.S.

District Judge Robert Chatigny. "If you requested such information on one of my juries, I would make it available."

After being

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advised of the practice of the federal court clerks, who report to the judges, Thompson said he would bring it up with his colleagues. He also said he is considering a court media panel to work out any access problems that may arise. The rationale for the secrecy policy, according to the court clerks, rests within a local rule and the district's jury plan.

Both flow from the Judicial Conference, which sets policy for the nation's federal courts, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington D.C., which carries out the policy.

In a July 20, 2005, memorandum, the Administrative Office recommended that disclosure of jurors to " media or public" be done only on request and within a given time frame.

Clerks asked for jurors' names and addresses at the federal courthouses in Bridgeport and New Haven claim the district's local rule 83.5, section 2 prevent them from releasing that information. Kevin Rowe, clerk of Connecticut's federal court, said a reading of the rules prohibits his office from releasing information about jurors except to counsel.

But Judge Thompson said there may be a misunderstanding. He reads that rule as pertaining only to responses on juror questionaires that are submitted before jury selection in open court. Additionally Rowe said juror information no longer is contained in either the court's electronic or paper case files — a procedure also recommended by the Administrative Office.

"One of our concerns is information getting out on the Web and people attempting to contact jurors," said Rowe. In Connecticut's state courts, as opposed to the federal courts the names and towns of sitting jurors are generally available from court clerks to anyone who asks, said Rhonda Stearley-Hebert, a spokesman for the state Judicial Department.

"It's possible or likely that the court clerk will first check with the judge to make sure there is not a limiting order restricting the release," said Stearley-Hebert. She said the rules of the state court allow a judge to limit access or even seal juror information based on circumstances of the case.

"Generally after the verdict is in, the names are available," she said.

Restrictions on identifying jurors appear to fly in the face of U.S. Supreme Court rulings, particularly the 1984 Press Enterprise Co. vs. Superior Court of California decision, according to Neigher and Pattis. The appeal by the press Enterprise newspaper of Riverside California, the prosecution, barred the public from attending jury selection in a rape and murder trial.

Writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, then-Chief Justice Warren Burger admonished the judge for the closure.

"Openness enhances both the basic fairness of the criminal trial and the appearance of fairness so essential to public confidence in the criminal justice system," Burger maintained. "Closed proceedings, although not absolutely precluded, must be rare and only for cause shown that outweighs the value of openness."

The state prosecutor wanted the press barred from jury selection because he feared jurors' responses to questions would lack the candor necessary to assure a fair trial if the press was there. He also opposed releasing transcripts of the questioning of jurors on the grounds it would violate their right to privacy.

The trial involved an alleged rape of a teenage girl. A prospective juror being questioned publicly who was once raped could privately tell the judge and her privacy could be protected, wrote Burger. Instead the trial judge simply closed the proceedings, prompting the Supreme Court to reverse.

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a concurring opinion emphasizing the importance of knowing the background of jurors. Rights "are most severely jeopardized when courts conceal from the public sensitive information that bears upon the ability of jurors impartially to weigh evidence presented to them."

Burger pointed out that jurors have been public since at least 11th century England. Disputes then were brought before what would now be likened to a town meeting. All the freemen were required to attend and vote on the verdict.

"The public aspect thus was almost a necessary incident of jury trials since the presence of a jury ensured the presence of a large part of the public," Burger wrote in the Press Enterprise ruling.

As the centuries rolled by, trials remained public but juries got smaller.

"The value of openness lies in the fact that people not actually attending trials can have confidence that standards of fairness are being observed," the U.S. Supreme Court determined in a 1982 ruling involving the closing of a Virginia murder trial. "The sure knowledge that anyone is free to attend gives assurance that established procedures are being followed and that deviations will become known."

The framers of the U.S. Constitution believed so strongly in the right to a free and public press and a defendant's right to a fair and public trial that they memorialized both in the First and Sixth Amendments.

In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court in still another ruling declared the need for offenders "being brought to account for their criminal conduct by jurors fairly and openly selected" Yet in its Press-Enterprise ruling, the Supreme Court also appears to have opened the door slightly to jury secrecy.

In that ruling, the justices noted the First Amendment requires jury selection to be held in open court. However, they also determined there may circumstances, "a particularized showing," in some cases that permit overriding the public's right to know.

The "showing" usually involves evidence of threats, injury or jury tampering.

The Press-Enterprise decision "dealt primarily with the closure of the courtroom," said Richard T. Meehan Jr., a Bridgeport lawyer who headed former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim's criminal defense team.

" That's a different issue than having the right to publish the jury's names."

"Judges work diligently to prevent any outside or extraneous influence on the way a jury examines the evidence," Meehan said.

He believes making jurors names available to the public could invite "kooks" as well as "people with an interest in the case" to try to contact panel members.

"There's no way to control that," Meehan said. In January 2003, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton expressed concern that the Connecticut Post published the names, hometowns and employment status of the 16 jurors chosen to hear Ganim's corruption trial. She told jurors on the case that they did not have to talk to the media.

But no Connecticut federal judge has barred the Post from sitting in on jury selection.

In recent years, some Connecticut federal judges identified jurors by number rather than name in cases involving organized crime and violent drug gangs.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, of which Connecticut federal courts are a part, outlined the guidelines for this in a 1991 decision.

The appellate court decided that an anonymous jury should not be empanelled unless the judge concludes "there is a strong reason to believe the jury needs protection and taking reasonable precautions to minimize the prejudicial effect on the defendant and to ensure his fundamental rights are protected."

Many state court rules on juror secrecy may have flowed from a 2001, 25-page report entitled "Making the Case for Juror Privacy: A New Framework for Court Policies and Procedures."

The project was undertaken for the nonprofit State Justice Institute in Alexandra, Va., by the National Center for State Courts, a nonprofit agency in Williamsburg, Va., that disseminates information to state courts to help them set policy.

Paula Hannaford, the paper's author, concluded that if the objective of jury selection is to choose a fair and impartial group of people, then the only information that should be disclosed is what's relevant to the question of juror bias and partiality.

She also recommends that after a verdict, "personal information about the jurors should be destroyed or sealed from further public scrutiny to protect the privacy of those citizens from intrusions unrelated to the trial."

Despite those recommendations, the late Ralph Elliot, then Connecticut's leading First Amendment lawyer, successfully fought in 2003 against a state prosecutor's attempt to keep jurors' identities secret.

That case involved the trial of a mother, Judith Scruggs, charged with crimes related to her failing to get her 12-year-old son the proper medical and psychological help before he committed suicide.

Elliot argued for the Record Journal of Meriden that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that jury service is a "duty as well as a privilege" and a juror "becomes a part or member of the court."

Elliot argued that "a juror is a public official during the time of his or her service."

"It is fundamental to the judicial process in a democratic form of government such as ours that the public is entitled to know who is acting for it, who is meting out justice for it, and who is deciding whether a fellow citizen's life, liberty or property will be forfeited or impaired on account of a crime committed against it," Elliot said.

"Knowing who is doing the judging and who is making life and death decisions," said Elliot, quoting the Supreme Court, "'enhances the quality and safeguards the integrity of the fact-finding process, with benefits both the defendant and to society as a whole', and permits the public to participate in and serve as a check upon the judicial process — an essential component in our structure of self government.' " Superior Court Judge Stephen F. Frazzini ruled that "the goals of promoting fairness and the goal of appearance of fairness are impaired when jurors are cloaked by a veil of anonymity.

"The jury is fundamentally a public institution." But that was by no means the final word on juror secrecy. In 2004, a New York federal judge barred the media from observing jury selection in the criminal case against Martha Stewart.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found the judge erred. Then came the 2005 Administrative Office's letter to federal court clerks. That letter maintains the Jury Selection and Service Act does not require jury information be made public but " recognized that the press has a qualified right to obtain juror information."

The issue revolves around just when that information can be obtained.

"District courts may withhold disclosure of jurors' names and addresses from the press where there are extraordinary publicity and security concerns," said Karen Redmond, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. "At the same time, it is recognized that such restrictions should not be imposed forever."

She said "courts have generally gravitated to a default position that the restrictions end at some point after the conclusion of the trial." But Neigher, the Westport lawyer, believes the rule is "preposterous," particularly in civil cases.

He said he could see a possible scenario in a criminal trial in which jurors' names and hometowns may be kept secret after the prosecution demonstrates a reasonable chance that harm might befall them. "But in a civil case?" he said. "You're only talking about money. What's the problem?"

Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas , who has spent almost 22 years on the bench, said he rarely sees reporters or the public sitting in on jury selection.

"But if they came I would never exclude them," he said. During jury selection for Ganim's trial and that of Victor Riccitelli, a Bridgeport organized crime figure, Arterton had extra chairs brought in and allowed reporters to sit in the well of the courtroom because prospective jurors filled all the benches.

"I've had reporters sit in the jury box during jury selection," said U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill, who sits in Bridgeport. "As a judge, you want people to see what's going on in court. You want to gain their confidence that proceedings are being handled appropriately."

Like Nevas, Underhill concedes it's rare that the public or the media attend jury selection. When they do, Nevas said, a judge has to be aware of the potential for a jury panel being prejudiced.

"Let's assume you take a recess. You've got the prospective jurors milling about the courtroom, milling around the hallway and a reporter starts asking them questions. That could prejudice the panel," he said. "The court has to be very careful about that."

So Nevas said he would welcome reporters to stay and cover the selection process but would advise them not to talk to prospective jurors.

After the conclusion of a trial, Nevas and Underhill said, they would consider requests for the names of the jurors, but neither could recall ever getting such a request. "Once the jury renders its verdict, no one is prevented from standing outside, going up to a juror and questioning them," Nevas said.