Judge Halts His Blanket Use of Jury Anonymity in Bellflower

A Bellflower judge who drew national attention for using anonymous juries in all criminal trials has decided to stop the practice, acknowledging that he is unlikely to persuade appeals courts to endorse the controversial policy.

Philip K. Mautino, presiding judge of Los Cerritos Municipal Court in Bellflower, said he ended his yearlong experiment with nameless panels last week after judges in three higher courts disapproved.

“I’m very saddened by this,” Mautino said. “The whole idea was to do something for jurors. We have a very bad situation in that jurors do not have anybody to look out for them. . . . It’s awful that they’re at the bottom of the barrel.”

Mautino and a Downey judge who has been using anonymous juries, John David Lord, will now focus their effort on persuading the state Legislature to allow more juror anonymity.

Mautino wanted to keep jurors’ names secret to ease any anxiety they might have about deciding cases, especially those involving violent defendants. State law gives jurors the right to have their names sealed at the end of trials, but Mautino believes that protection is meaningless unless it is offered at the beginning.

All five trial courts in Mautino’s courthouse began using anonymous juries, as did two judges in Downey Municipal Court. The public defender’s office challenged the practice, saying it created the impression that jurors have something to fear from defendants. Legal scholars also criticized the practice, saying it undermined a defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Mautino and Lord sought endorsement from the Superior Court but failed. That court said the law did not appear to allow blanket anonymity for jurors in all cases and ordered that jurors’ names be made public.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal later said that only the parties in a case--the prosecution and the defense, not the judge--have the legal right to argue the issue of juror anonymity.

Mautino and Lord, the presiding judge of Downey Municipal Court, appealed to the state Supreme Court. Mautino lost when the high court, ruling in a case from Bellflower, agreed that judges lack standing to argue juror anonymity.

The court has not yet ruled in the Downey case, but Lord said he “can read the writing on the wall” and expects the court to rule against him. He said he anticipates that he and the other Downey judge who uses anonymous juries will drop the practice as well.

Deputy Public Defender Alex Ricciardulli, who supervised the legal challenge to the blanket-anonymity policies, said he is relieved that appeals courts blocked them.

“It would be nice to say we won a big victory here,” Ricciardulli said. “But what really happened is that we just got back to the status quo. What these courts have been doing is (being) rogue courts.”

Lord has drafted proposed legislation to give judges more power to use anonymous juries. Mautino said he hopes it will win sponsorship and a hearing in Sacramento.

Mautino said he believes that jurors want and deserve the protection of anonymity. During the year he conducted trials with nameless panels, he said, only six or seven of the 2,800 jurors called to serve in the Bellflower courthouse chose to have their names made public when given the option of anonymity.