Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants the identities of future jurors in the Georgia election interference case to be kept secret. Willis herself has received threats and her personal information has been published online. John Bazemore/AP Hide caption
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John Bazemore/AP
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants the identities of future jurors in the Georgia election interference case to be kept secret. Willis herself has received threats and her personal information has been published online.
John Bazemore/AP
ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County prosecutors want a judge to ban defendants, the media and anyone else from publishing the identities of prospective jurors in the Georgia criminal trial of former President Donald Trump.
This request comes after the personal information of members of the grand jury who indicted Trump and his allies in August in a broad extortion conspiracy was published on a far-right website.
District Attorney Fani Willis is asking Fulton Chief Judge Scott McAfee to prevent anyone from sharing the likeness or identifying personal information of potential jurors or jurors in the election interference trial.
“It is clear that the trial jurors will likely be pressured if their names are made public,” Willis wrote in her motion Wednesday. “If that were to happen, the impact on the jury’s ability to decide the matters before them impartially and without outside influence would undoubtedly be jeopardized.”
In an attached affidavit, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum wrote that the jurors were subjected to harassment and threats after their home addresses, phone numbers and vehicle information were posted on a website operated by a Russian company.
At that point, Schierbaum wrote that local law enforcement had enacted an operational plan to protect jurors, which he said was now straining agency resources. He did not provide any information about what that security entails.
WABE reported in July that Georgia law requires jurors’ names to be listed in indictments, even in controversial cases. But the Atlanta chief’s affidavit suggests law enforcement took these additional steps to protect their safety only after the jury was pressured.
Doxing is the act of publishing a person’s private information online without their permission in order to shame, embarrass, or target them.
A prosecutor’s investigator also concluded that the same website also posted personal information about Willis and her family, as well as racist and derogatory comments. Willis is Black.
The investigator, Gerald Walsh, wrote that the website was known to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the site had refused to remove the information.
“The doxing of both the grand jurors and the district attorney is permanent,” Schierbaum wrote.
In Georgia, juror names are typically made public
There was no precedent for sealing the names of jurors or grand jurors in Georgia.
Then this week, juror names were omitted from an indictment against activists protesting a controversial police training center in Atlanta.
“We are entering uncharted territory in Georgia,” says Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, as judges, juries and court staff face increasing harassment and officials in Georgia begin to look for new ways to respond.
He says jurors’ names have traditionally been publicly known, at least after a verdict, if not right at the start.
While Willis’ motion does not appear to ask a judge to formally seal the names, it does ask for an order to prevent the dissemination of “any oral or written descriptions of information that would assist persons in determining the identity of jurors.”
In August, Skandalakis said transparency was a cornerstone of Georgia’s justice system, but it might be worth asking whether it was time for lawmakers or courts to consider mechanisms to protect jurors in certain cases.
“We have an interest in making sure people are willing to serve,” Skandalakis said. “And if something makes it dangerous or causes people not to participate, that will have an impact on all of us as citizens.”
