Plan for anonymous juries would make Virginia a rarity

If adopted, a proposal to keep the names of jurors confidential, at least from the public, in all criminal trials apparently would make Virginia unique in the country.

It is not clear if a defendant in Virginia ever has harmed a juror. That possibility is one of the concerns behind a law the General Assembly passed last year.

That law permits judges to keep jurors' identifying information secret from all but the lawyers in a case -- even from the defendant -- when a judge finds good cause there is a "likelihood" of bribery, tampering, or physical injury or harassment to jurors.

However, an advisory committee to the Virginia Supreme Court has proposed making juries anonymous in all cases -- though defense lawyers, consultants and defendants would learn juror identities unless, as in cases above, the judge finds cause to keep them secret.

Expanding it to all cases, the committee reasons, would avoid an implication to jurors that their identity has been kept confidential in a particular case because the defendant is dangerous.

Gregory Hurley, a knowledge-management analyst with the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, said the legislation passed by the assembly is similar to laws in many other states.

It provides for the confidentiality of juror information in the "very small" number of cases in which it is warranted.

"The concept of having an anonymous jury when there is the potential of a threat to one or more jurors is pretty common. It's probably the standard nationally," But, he said, expanding it to all criminal juries "is definitely unusual."

"This committee report and the proposed rule is a big expansion on the statute," he said. Hurley said he is not aware of any state requiring that juror names be kept confidential in all criminal cases and questioned the need to do so.

In other states, judges give juries instructions aimed at offsetting any inference a juror might draw that a defendant is dangerous because the jury was kept anonymous, he said.

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, the chief patron of the 2008 bill, said his intent was only to have the jurors' names kept confidential in cases where there is reason to believe it is necessary.

As the bill passed the assembly, however, the Virginia Supreme Court was directed to draft and implement rules for its application. The proposed rules now are under consideration.

In 2006, Del. H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, introduced a similar bill that did not pass after a man sent to one of the state's highest-security prisons was able to learn the names and addresses of several jurors who convicted him and wrote letters to them.

The letters were not overtly threatening, Griffith said. But they were unsettling for the jurors who received them. Those jurors brought it to the attention of the judge.

The Virginia State Police does not keep records on jurors who may have been threatened or harmed. A spokesman for the state attorney general's office said: "There are anecdotal instances, but we do not track them in our database unless they are specific issues on appeal."

The dean of Virginia prosecutors, Paul B. Ebert, the Prince William County commonwealth's attorney since 1968, said yesterday, "I've never had anybody harmed that I can recall." But he said he has heard from some jurors who were "very concerned" that their names were public.

Robert Q. Harris, director of the Commonwealth's Attorneys' Services Council, also said he could not recall a case in which a juror was harmed by a defendant.

However, he said, "I occasionally have heard reports relayed from prosecutors about former jurors complaining of harassment and perhaps some concern of personal safety because of contacts after trial from people who were associated in some way with a criminal defendant."

Ginger Stanley, executive director of the Virginia Press Association, said the VPA helped win the standards required for a judge to keep jurors' identities secret under the 2008 law.

"We have voiced concern, and we will voice great concern again over the preliminary findings of this committee," she said.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .