Judge Issues Ban on Jurors’ Names
The federal judge overseeing the retrial of former Silicon Valley investment banking star Frank Quattrone instructed the news media Tuesday not to reveal the names of jurors until he allows otherwise.
The unusual ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Owen follows the mistrial this month in the corruption case of two former Tyco International Ltd. executives. The judge in that case declared a mistrial after a juror who was identified in newspaper stories received a letter pressuring her to convict the defendants.
Owen’s order came on the first day of jury selection in the criminal retrial of Quattrone, a former banker at Credit Suisse First Boston and once one of the highest-paid men on Wall Street.
Quattrone is charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of witness tampering in a case related to the government’s investigation of Wall Street banking practices.
Prosecutors say Quattrone in 2000 tried to coax his technology banking team to destroy documents sought in probes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a federal grand jury. The investigations centered on whether CSFB forced customers to pay outsized commissions -- basically kickbacks -- to qualify for allocations of hot initial public stock offerings.
Quattrone’s first trial ended in a mistrial in October when the jury could not reach a verdict.
The news media traditionally do not divulge jurors’ names during trials. But that changed in the Tyco trial after some news organizations reported that juror Ruth B. Jordan flashed an “OK” sign to the defense table.
The Wall Street Journal published her name in its online edition that afternoon, and the New York Post ran a sketch of her on its front page the next day. The Los Angeles Times published her name three days later, after it was mentioned in open court.
On April 2 the judge in the case declared a mistrial, citing public pressure on Jordan.
In the Quattrone case, Owen rejected a request last week by the lead defense attorney, John Keker, to impanel an anonymous jury. But Tuesday, after a sidebar session with lawyers in court, the judge issued his order barring publication of juror names.
However, his ruling raised 1st Amendment issues.
Former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson, a professor of criminal rules and procedure at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the judge didn’t have the right to forbid the media from revealing juror identities.
“The judge has the power not to reveal the names of any of the jurors, but if the media gets the names from a lawful source, then the judge can’t order anyone not to publish them,” Levenson said. “That would be prior restraint,” in violation of the Constitution.
Levenson said judges might appeal to reporters to voluntarily keep secret jurors’ names if that is warranted, noting that the media generally do so in any case.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the public should have access to all pertinent information about most parts of trials, including jury selection, Levenson noted.
However, she said, jurors’ names generally aren’t considered an important issue, unlike details such as their ethnic or financial backgrounds.
The idea that jurors’ identities should be protected is a relatively recent one, Levenson noted. It emerged with trials of organized-crime figures.
