Now this is an interesting development. Yesterday we told you that Nxivm leader Keith Raniere had submitted an objection to Judge Nicholas Garaufis, saying that keeping the jury anonymous in the upcoming Nxivm trial not only to the public and press but also to the parties involved would harm his chances at a fair trial.
Late yesterday we got word that Judge Garaufis agreed with Raniere and granted his request. The personal information about jurors will be given to Raniere and the other defendants. Here’s the judge’s order…
The court has reviewed Keith Raniere’s letter objecting to its order regarding an anonymous jury and finds his objections have merit. There is no “substantial potential threat of corruption to the judicial process” that would require complete anonymity… Accordingly, the names of prospective and empaneled jurors will be withheld from the public until after the trial, but will be made available to the parties, their attorneys, and their attorneys’ staffs and consultants only, and shall not be divulged to any third party until further order of the court. Jurors must be identified only by juror number in open court.
As we said yesterday, we could understand Raniere wanting to know the identities of the people who are going to decide his fate. But he also let on that he wanted to identities so his legal team could conduct research on them.
How intimidating will that be for jurors, knowing that Raniere is gathering information about them, and will have some of their most personal data?
Let us know how big the effect of this decision might have on swaying the jury one way or the other.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on April 6, 2019 at 12:00
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Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He’s written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology’s harassment of Paulette Cooper titled ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely,’ and more recently a compilation of his stories, ‘Battlefield Scientology.’ He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world, as well as other subjects at The Underground Bunker. You can reach him by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you’d like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.)
