I totally agree that especially in high risk trials with violent offenders jurors should definitely be provided with much more anonymity, privacy and security. In the early 90's I was involved in a very large organized crime trial with over 30 defendants in the courtroom. The federal prosecutor chose to have the trial in a city in the midwest. The trial was 9 months long. Although the defendants came from all over, from Washing State to Florida to Boston, Chicago and Texas. The gallery was packed with all of their family and friends along with the media. It was definitely a circus.
The jury was sequestered at a historic hotel downtown near the Federal Courthouse. There were only about 4 places near the courthouse to eat lunch or have a drink and one of them was the restaurant inside the hotel.
One of the jurors was a good looking guy, in great shape, mid twenties. One evening a few weeks into the trial, he was sitting in the hotel bar having a drink and he was approached by a very attractive 20-something girl who was very flirtatious, who asked to buy him a drink and he accepted. They had several drinks together and moved out to the much more private ivy-covered patio to make out. They made plans to meet again the next night for drinks again. The next night, same thing, except while making out, she takes $10 grand out of her purse and offers it to him to vote not guilty no matter what and hang the jury. The next morning, he reported this to the sheriff and judge and he was dismissed from the jury and the judge was PIZZED, demanding from the defense attorneies to reveal who the woman was. Never found out.
A couple of weeks later, while court was in session, a 45-ish yr old juror's wife whop was pregnant with twins got a menacing visit from two thugs who told her that she better tell her husband to "get it right or there would be hell to pay"
Juror tampering and intimidation is of couse against the law but only if you get caught. A LOT of other crazy antics went on during that trial, just insane what people will do. That was in the early 90's before so many people were online, info seaches, myspace, facebook, twitter other digital footprints and easy to track. I can only imagine how easy it would be to track down jurors and harrass them, especially if the person only got a short sentence and was released with a nasty chip on their shoulder or had nasty friends do evil deeds for them.
