Should Jurors Lose Their Sense Of Privacy?

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Recommended: Role of a jury in a criminal trial

Jurors play one of the most important roles in the courtroom, which is deciding on a verdict of guilty or innocent. The fate of an offender lays in the palms their hands, and as a result there is a lot of pressure. There are always going to be individuals who disagree with the verdict in various cases, and people can become outraged and even turn to violence. Jurors can be in danger once their names are made public information because individuals who disagree with a verdict can take his or her anger out on jurors by obtaining their addresses and phone numbers. I believe the criminal trials that receive massive amounts of media attention put jurors at a greater risk of danger. Ultimately, jurors lose their sense of privacy because their names are displayed for the public to have knowledge of and use for various things. Making juror information public not only poses a risk of danger to individual jurors, but to their families as well. There can also be a risk of unwanted and negative media attention. …show more content…

The judge in the case called for a three-month grace period before releasing the names of the jurors in order to allow angry protesters to calm down because he feared for their safety (Dimond, 2011). The jurors for the Anthony case were chosen from the Tampa and Clearwater area in Florida, which is 100 miles away from Orlando where the trial was taking place (Dimond, 2011). According to Dimond (2011), “One older female juror who worked in a grocery store to supplement her retirement income quit her job and went into hiding after receiving death threats, including some from her co-workers” (n.p.). That juror eventually moved from Florida to another state (Dimond,

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