Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Volume 13 Issue 3 Volume 13, Spring 1999, Issue 3 Article 1 Anonymous Juries: In Exigent Circumstances Only Abraham Abramovsky Jonathan I. Edelstein Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ARTICLES ANONYMOUS JURIES: IN EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES ONLY ABRAHAM ABRAMOVSKY* AND JONATHAN I. EDELSTEIN** INTRODUCTION Slightly more than twenty years ago in United States v. Barnes,1 a federal trial judge in the Southern District of New York empaneled the first fully anonymous jury in American his- tory.2 This unprecedented measure, 3 undertaken by the court on * Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law; Director, International Criminal Law Center. J.S.D., Columbia University, 1976; LL.M., Columbia University, 1972; J.D., University of Buffalo, 1971; B.A., Queens College, 1968. ** J.D., Fordham University, 1997; B.A., John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 1992. This essay is dedicated, for the first and hopefully not the last time, to my flanc6e, Naomi Rabinowitz. 1 604 F.2d 121 (2d Cir. 1979). The trial in the Barnes case occurred in 1977. Id. at 133. 2 See Barnes, 604 F.2d at 133 (2d Cir. 1979) (noting that previously, only partially anonymous juries had been empaneled on several occasions in Ninth Circuit during 1950's).