Judge: Identities of Long jurors must be kept secret

By Rich Cholodofsky
TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Privacy rights of jurors are important to safeguard the integrity of the jury system and their names should remain confidential, a Westmoreland County judge ruled Jan. 9. 

Judge William J. Ober yesterday refused attempts by the Tribune-Review and WPXI-TV to learn the identities of the 16 jurors who served in the murder trial of Ligonier podiatrist Dr. Karl Long last summer. 

Ober said keeping jurors' identities private is essential to protect them from unwanted media attention, and he also suggested the release of that information could subject them to identity theft and other harassment. 

The Tribune-Review said it will challenge Ober's ruling. 

"To have anonymous juries is to have secret trials," said Tribune-Review attorney David Strassburger. "Since the adoption of the First Amendment, and even before that, the public has had the right to know who sits in judgment in the jury box. A judge cannot seal jurors' names and addresses any more than he could hand them hoods or masks. We will appeal." 

Long was convicted of third-degree murder for the 1999 suffocation death of his estranged wife. He is serving a sentence of five to 10 years in prison. 

The Tribune-Review and WPXI-TV sought the names of jurors in the Long case almost immediately after deliberations began. Ober claimed their names and addresses were confidential and refused to make that information public. 

In his 20-page opinion yesterday, Ober contended state Supreme Court rules governing jury selection protect confidentiality. He also said his refusal to make the names public does not violate the openness of criminal trials and argued that the facts of the Long case justify his decision. 

"In today's information-sensitive society, the privacy rights of jurors must be protected to ensure their continued willingness to participate in the justice system," Ober wrote. 

The judge took the media to task for seeking "sensationalized post-trial interviews" and trying to invade the confidentiality of the jury's deliberations. 

Ober wrote that releasing juror names and addresses could threaten their well-being and make them targets for con artists. 

He referred to a Los Angeles case in which jurors were targets of identity theft, and another case in Wisconsin in which jurors faced financial harassment from local militia groups. 

Jurors' privacy was justified in the Long case because of concerns about potential jury tampering during the trial, Ober said. He previously claimed his staff received complaints from jurors that the victim's family members had tried to intimidate them. 

Suspicions of tampering were never disclosed until three months after the trial when Ober made the revelation during a hearing on the media's request for the jurors' names. 

Despite the judge's efforts to keep the names confidential, the Tribune-Review learned the identities through payroll records on file with the county controller's office. 

Several jurors consented to interviews with the newspaper. 

Ober also said there is no controlling law from the state Supreme Court to guide judges on how the issue of jury privacy should be resolved. 

Other states, as well as federal court rulings, provide for disclosing jurors' names, but Ober said those cases are not the prevailing law in Pennsylvania.