So the Arizona Supreme Court held today (Morgan v. Dickerson), in an opinion by Vice Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer:
The superior court in Cochise County uses "innominate juries" for all criminal jury trials. Under that procedure, prospective and impaneled jurors are referred to by numbers rather than by names throughout open-court proceedings, although the court and the parties know their identities. Consequently, although voir dire examinations and trials are open for public viewing, observers are not provided jurors' names absent order of the court….
[W]e are asked to decide whether the First Amendment provides the public a qualified right of access to jurors' names during voir dire, thereby creating presumptive access to those names that can be overcome only on a case-by-case basis by showing both a compelling state interest and that denying access is a remedy narrowly tailored to serve that interest. We hold the First Amendment does not prohibit the court's practice….
Arizona law provides that "[t]he list of juror names or other juror information shall not be released unless specifically required by law or ordered by the court." …
[T]he [Supreme] Court has held that the First Amendment guarantee of qualified public access attaches to criminal trials, voir dire examinations, and trial-like preliminary hearings… [But] the right to attend voir dire [and] a right to access juror names … are far from the same thing. Here, the public was not barred from attending any part of the criminal trials, including voir dire, so the most essential press and public right is not implicated…. [T]he Supreme Court has not addressed whether the First Amendment guarantee of qualified public access to voir dire examinations extends to learning jurors' names….
The court then applied the Supreme Court's "experience and logic" inquiry into whether a particular facet of the judicial process should be open; it agreed that, as to experience, "jurors' names were traditionally revealed during jury selection proceedings," but concludes that "logic" cuts in favor of upholding departures from that tradition:
