Opinion ID: 552333
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Meaning of Interests of Justice Standard

Text: 20 Were we dealing with a matter of general trial procedure, we might construe the phrase if the interests of justice so require as tantamount to conferring upon each district judge virtually unbridled discretion to do as he or she thinks best. But a decision to impound the names and addresses of jurors is not an ordinary procedural matter. 7 Where, for example, similar interests of justice phraseology governed the withholding of juror names in a Mississippi state court trial, the state high court held that only in rare and exceptional cases should a presiding judge sequester or keep secret the names of jurors drawn from the jury box. Valentine v. State, 396 So.2d 15, 17 (Miss.1981). Absent specific reasons, the Supreme Court of Colorado has likewise refused to permit a trial judge to withhold juror names and addresses under a comparable statute. People v. Vigil, 718 P.2d 496, 500 (Colo.1986). 21 The above state cases dealt with the withholding of juror names and addresses prior to trial, where issues of jury tampering and publicity affecting defendants' fair-trial rights may collide with the desires of parties to investigate jurors' backgrounds. See also Swindle v. State, 502 So.2d 652, 654-55 (Miss.1987) (Jury tampering). Post-trial requests for juror names raise a somewhat different mix of issues. Nonetheless, at any stage a decision to withhold juror identities raises difficult questions. Thus, like the Mississippi and Colorado courts, we construe the interests-of-justice standard as requiring that the trial court find specific and convincing reasons why, in the particular case, the juror identities are required to be withheld. We also agree with the Mississippi court that the interests-of-justice standard means that withholding should occur only in an exceptional case. Valentine v. State, 396 So.2d at 17. 22 This narrow reading of the interests-of-justice standard is even more strongly indicated by the following prudential rule recently reiterated by the Supreme Court: 23 It is our settled policy to avoid an interpretation of a federal statute that engenders constitutional issues if a reasonable alternative interpretation poses no constitutional question. Gomez v. United States, [490 U.S. 858, ----] 109 S.Ct. 2237, 2241 [104 L.Ed.2d 923] (1989). 24 Withholding the names of trial jurors from press or public, after the trial has terminated, involves a clash of constitutionally protected interests. On the one hand, impounding juror names implicates the press's First Amendment right of access to criminal trials. See Press Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 478 U.S. 1, 8-9, 106 S.Ct. 2735, 2740-41, 92 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986) (Press Enterprise II ). On the other hand, disclosure may implicate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. See Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 362-63, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 1522-23, 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966); In re Globe Newspaper Co., 729 F.2d 47, 52-53 (1st Cir.1984). Also, the jurors themselves have an interest in having their privacy protected. See Press Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501, 510-13, 104 S.Ct. 819, 824-26, 78 L.Ed.2d 629 (1984) (Press Enterprise I ). 25 The Supreme Court has firmly established that the First Amendment protects the right of press and public to attend criminal proceedings, together with the right to gather information. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 681, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 2656, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 (1972); Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 576, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 2826-27, 65 L.Ed.2d 973. This right has been found to include access to trial testimony of minor sex offense victims, Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982); access to voir dire proceedings, Press Enterprise I, 464 U.S. at 501, 104 S.Ct. at 819-20, and access to a pre-trial criminal hearing, Press Enterprise II, 478 U.S. at 1, 106 S.Ct. at 2735-37. In addition, this court has extended the Supreme Court's analysis to find a First Amendment right to attend bail hearings. In re Globe Newspaper Co., 729 F.2d 47 (1st Cir.1984). 26 These decisions have been rooted in the historic common law public character of criminal proceedings since the Norman Conquest in England and the United States Constitution as an indispensable attribute of an Anglo-American trial. Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 569, 100 S.Ct. at 2823. The Supreme Court has identified the following purposes which open justice serves: assuring that proceedings are conducted fairly; discouraging perjury, misconduct of participants, and biased decisions; prophylaxis as an outlet for community hostility and emotion; ensuring public confidence in a trial's results through the appearance of fairness; inspiring confidence in judicial proceedings through education regarding the methods of government and judicial remedies. Id. at 571-72, 100 S.Ct. at 2824-25; Press Enterprise I, 464 U.S. at 508-09, 104 S.Ct. at 823-24; In re Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 773 F.2d 1325, 1336-37 (D.C.Cir.1985) (Scalia, J.). 27 To be sure, access to jurors' lists is distinguishable from the situations above, because the juror names and addresses are collateral information kept by the court for its necessary administrative purposes, rather than being court proceedings or records of such proceedings. There is, moreover, clearly no public right of access to the jurors' deliberations themselves. Nevertheless, many of the purposes listed above which open justice serves are equally served by access to the identities of the jurors. Knowledge of juror identities allows the public to verify the impartiality of key participants in the administration of justice, and thereby ensures fairness, the appearance of fairness and public confidence in that system. It is possible, for example, that suspicions might arise in a particular trial (or in a series of trials) that jurors were selected from only a narrow social group, or from persons with certain political affiliations, or from persons associated with organized crime groups. It would be more difficult to inquire into such matters, and those suspicions would seem in any event more real to the public, if names and addresses were kept secret. Furthermore, information about jurors, obtained from the jurors themselves or otherwise, serves to educate the public regarding the judicial system and can be important to public debate about its strengths, flaws and means to improve it. Although the district judge here assumed that the Globe sought access solely to inquire into the deliberative process, other avenues of inquiry are conceivable. Juror bias or confusion might be uncovered, and jurors' understanding and response to judicial proceedings could be investigated. Public knowledge of juror identities could also deter intentional misrepresentation at voir dire. 28 On the other side, the press should recognize, as no doubt many reporters do, that a special historical and essential value applies to the secrecy of jury deliberations which is not applicable to other trial and pre-trial proceedings. Clearly, there is no ordinary public right to know what occurs in the jury room. It is undisputed that the secrecy of jury deliberations fosters free, open and candid debate in reaching a decision. It has therefore been a common and, we believe, wise custom for trial judges to advise jurors, as did the judge in this case, that they are not only free to refuse to disclose what went on in the jury room, but that they may well think it better and more prudent to decline to discuss what has occurred. 8 The Supreme Court has stated: Freedom of debate might be stifled and independence of thought checked if jurors were made to feel that their arguments and ballots were to be freely published to the world ... No doubt the need is weighty that conduct in the jury room shall be untrammeled by the fear of embarrassing publicity. Clark v. United States, 289 U.S. 1, 13, 53 S.Ct. 465, 468, 77 L.Ed. 993 (1933) (Cardozo, J.). See also United States v. Harrelson, 713 F.2d 1114 (5th Cir.1983) (upholding constitutionality of ban on inquiry into specific vote of jurors other than the juror being interviewed); Press Enterprise II, 478 U.S. at 8-9, 106 S.Ct. at 2740 (Although many governmental processes operate best under public scrutiny, it takes little imagination to recognize that there are some kinds of government operations that would be totally frustrated if conducted openly.); United States v. Franklin, 546 F.Supp. 1133 (N.D.Ind.1982). 29 In addition, jurors summoned from the community to serve as participants in our democratic system of justice are entitled to safety, privacy and protection against harassment. Where a juror may reasonably fear retaliation from criminal defendants, jury anonymity promotes impartial decision-making. United States v. Scarfo, 850 F.2d 1015, 1023 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 910, 109 S.Ct. 263, 102 L.Ed.2d 251 (1988); United States v. Edmond, 730 F.Supp. 1144, 1146 (D.D.C.1990). This court has also stated in a different context: 30 Permitting the unbridled interviewing of jurors could easily lead to their harassment, to the exploitation of their thought processes, and to diminished confidence in jury verdicts, as well as to unbalanced trial results depending unduly on the relative resources of the parties. 31 United States v. Kepreos, 759 F.2d 961 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 901, 106 S.Ct. 227, 88 L.Ed.2d 227 (1985). As the Supreme Court has recognized, protecting jurors' privacy interests also implicates the integrity and reputation of the judicial process: The State has a similar interest in protecting juror privacy, even after trial--to encourage juror honesty in the future--that almost always will be coextensive with the juror's own privacy interest. Press Enterprise I, 464 U.S. at 515, 104 S.Ct. at 827 (Blackmun, J., concurring). 32 No federal court of appeals has yet passed on the right of access to juror names and addresses following a trial. The courts of appeals have, however, passed on the right to such information during trial--with different results. 33 In United States v. Gurney, 558 F.2d 1202 at 1210 & n. 12 (5th Cir.1977), reh'g denied, 562 F.2d 1257 (5th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 968, 98 S.Ct. 1606, 56 L.Ed.2d 59 (1978), decided before Richmond Newspapers and subsequent Supreme Court free press cases, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the press's First Amendment right of access extends only to information already part of the public record, which did not include the jury list. The court found that the district judge had discretion to restrict access to the jury list both to ensure a fair and orderly trial, and in accordance with well-established practice to protect the privacy of jurors in a highly publicized trial. See also United States v. Edwards, 823 F.2d 111, 120 (5th Cir.), reh'g denied, 828 F.2d 772, cert. denied, 485 U.S. 934, 108 S.Ct. 1109, 99 L.Ed.2d 270 (1988) (The usefulness of releasing juror names appears to us highly questionable.); Gannett Co., Inc. v. State of Delaware, 571 A.2d 735 (Del.1989), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1947, 109 L.Ed.2d 310 (1990) (First Amendment does not require announcement of juror names during a highly publicized trial). 34 More recently the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has held, in light of Press Enterprise I, that even in the case of highly publicized trials, the juror names, and addresses for identification, must both be made public. Although applying a First Amendment analysis, the court explicitly stated: We see no need to and do not base our decision on the First Amendment. In re Baltimore Sun Co., 841 F.2d at 75 n. 4. The court reasoned that, historically, jurors in small communities were known on sight; it assumed that release of juror names to the press today, and their potential broadcast throughout the community or nation, in principle raised no different issue, and it concluded that such release is an application of what has always been the law. 841 F.2d 74, 75 (4th Cir.1988). The court further found that the risk of loss of confidence of the public in the judicial process is too great to permit a criminal defendant to be tried by a jury whose members may maintain anonymity. Id. at 76. A fortiori, where the trial has ended and concern about orderly proceedings is no longer relevant, the Fourth Circuit's analysis would seem to lead that court to support post-verdict access to juror identities. See also United States v. Doherty, 675 F.Supp. 719 (D.Mass.1987), aff'd in part, rev'd in part on other grounds, 867 F.2d 47 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 3243, 106 L.Ed.2d 590 (1989) (newspapers had First Amendment right of access after trial and verdict to juror identities); Journal Publishing Co. v. Mechem, 801 F.2d 1233, 1236-37 (10th Cir.1986) (district court's order prohibiting press interviews with jurors after controversial civil trial, without a compelling reason, was unconstitutionally overbroad). 35 Also related to the present asserted right of access to juror identities is the common law right of access to judicial records. The Supreme Court has recognized a historically based common law right to inspect and copy judicial records and documents. Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 1311-12, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978). First Amendment policy concerns underlie this common law right of access to government information. Anderson v. Cryovac, Inc., 805 F.2d 1, 13 (1st Cir.1986) (The common law presumption that the public may inspect judicial records has been the foundation on which the courts have based the first amendment right of access to judicial proceedings.); see also State ex rel. Morke v. Donnelly, 155 Wis.2d 521, 455 N.W.2d 893 (1990); State ex rel. Youmans v. Owens, 28 Wis.2d 672, 677, 137 N.W.2d 470, 472-74 (1965), modified on other grounds, 28 Wis.2d 685a, 139 N.W.2d 241 (1966) (compelling access to investigation of police department based on newspaper publisher's intent to publish information concerning the operation of government). In Warner Communications, the Supreme Court stated: It is clear that the courts of this country recognize a general right to inspect and copy public records and documents, including judicial records and documents, subject, however, to courts' supervisory power to deny access where court files might become a vehicle for improper purposes. 435 U.S. at 597-98, 98 S.Ct. at 1312 (footnotes omitted). The Supreme Court noted that the contours of this common law right have not been precisely delineated, but found it was agreed that the access decision is one best left to the sound discretion of the trial court, a discretion to be exercised in light of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case. Warner Communications, 435 U.S. at 599, 98 S.Ct. at 1312-13 (footnote omitted). 36 Finally, it is relevant to note the argument made by the district court below. In effect, the court feared that a trial may be significantly less fair when a juror may deliberate with an eye towards what some other juror might report in the press or on national television. 9 And, the court felt that asking jurors not to talk about deliberations, while at the same time handing out their names and addresses to the press, even against their will, sent a mixed message about the desirability of such behavior. 37 As the above discussion indicates, it is not easy to draw a precise line as to when the federal constitution requires juror names and addresses to be revealed and when not. At different times the public interest will balance out in different directions. We need not, however, and do not, attempt to draw that line here. It is enough to observe that if we construed the interests-of-justice standard in Sec. 10(c) of the District of Massachusetts jury plan to confer unlimited discretion upon individual judges to withhold juror identities, we would have to try to balance these, and other considerations, and try to draw that line. Gomez v. United States, 109 S.Ct. at 2240. The same result would follow if we construed Sec. 10(c)'s interests-of-justice requirement to allow impoundment of juror identities for reasons less serious than a substantial threat to the administration of justice. 38 Given, therefore, the Supreme Court's settled policy to avoid interpreting laws so as to raise a substantial constitutional issue, we must ask if a reasonable alternative interpretation exists which poses no constitutional question. Id. The answer, of course, is yes. As the mentioned state courts have done in like circumstances, it is altogether reasonable to construe the Sec. 10(c) interests-of-justice exception as contemplating the withholding of juror identities only upon a finding of exceptional circumstances peculiar to the case. Such circumstances include a credible threat of jury tampering, a risk of personal harm to individual jurors, and other evils affecting the administration of justice, but do not include the mere personal preferences or views of the judge or jurors. 10 39 In emphasizing that the norm under the local plan is to make juror names and addresses public, we realize that many present and past jurors could be troubled by our seeming indifference to their desire for personal privacy. Jurors, after all, are citizen soldiers; unlike judges and court personnel, they are not full-time professionals. At first glance it will seem unfair that, in addition to giving of their time and talent, they may, in publicized cases, be forced to run a press gauntlet and have their identities exposed to a public which they might fear will contain a few vengeful or unbalanced persons. But there are several answers to this: first, jurors may avoid many problems by flatly refusing press interviews when approached. Second, while privacy concerns following a publicized trial are real--and may understandably include some nervousness about personal security--these unfocused fears must be balanced against the loss of public confidence in our justice system that could arise if criminal juries very often consisted of anonymous persons. While anonymity is acceptable in the exceptional case where there is a particular need for it, the prospect of criminal justice being routinely meted out by unknown persons does not comport with democratic values of accountability and openness. Jurors may be citizen soldiers, but they are soldiers nonetheless, and like soldiers of any sort, they may be asked to perform distasteful duties. Their participation in publicized trials may sometimes force them into the limelight against their wishes. We cannot accept the mere generalized privacy concerns of jurors, no matter how sincerely felt, as a sufficient reason for withholding their identities under the interests-of-justice standard.