The Federal judge handling E. Jean Carroll’s rape/defamation lawsuits against Donald Trump just gave Trump a treatment generally reserved for mafia bosses and terrorists. Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered that the jurors in the case will be anonymous. The judge did so, not on the request of either party, but sua sponte (the court’s own motion). The judge acknowledged that such treatment was unusual and “most often” reserved for “terrorism and organized crime cases.”
However, the judge cited Trump’s long history of attempting to intimidate courts, witnesses, and even individual jurors as justifying this unusual step.
“it bears mention that Mr. Trump repeatedly has attacked courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even individual jurors in other matters.”
A very lengthy footnote, filling most of a page provides examples of that. Footnote 7 on page 4 is definitely worth a read.
Another example cited by the court is Trump’s reaction in the last week to reports that Alvin Bragg’s grand jury in Manhattan is about to indict Trump. The judge noted his court is next door to Bragg’s.
“Mr. Trump’s quite recent reaction to what he perceived as an imminent threat of indictment by a grand jury sitting virtually next door to this Court was to encourage ‘protest’ and to urge people to ‘take our country back.’ That reaction reportedly has been perceived by some as incitement to violence.”
The court continues.
“In these circumstances, this Court is obliged to consider the likely effect on jurors of the matters just described, similar events in the relatively recent past, and the likely future course of events, including the inevitable extensive media coverage. And it cannot properly ignore the significant risk that jurors selected to serve in this case will be affected by concern that they could be targeted for unwanted media attention, outside pressure, and retaliation and harassment from persons unhappy with any verdict that might be returned.”
The motion was not objected to by either party, though news organizations did citing the customary approach of open courts. In rejecting the medias concerns the judge made clear that Trump history of “violent rhetoric” outweighed even the Constitutional concerns raised by the media:
“Mr. Trump himself has made critical statements on social media regarding the grand jury foreperson in Atlanta, Georgia, and the jury foreperson in the Roger Stone criminal case. And this properly may be viewed in the context of Mr. Trump’s many statements regarding individual judges, the judiciary in general, and other public officials, as well as what reports have characterized as ‘violent rhetoric’ by Mr. Trump including before his presidency. In these circumstances, the common law and constitutional arguments made by the News and the AP are unpersuasive.”
This is what a judge is compelled to for a civil trial of a former President of the United States. The trial is scheduled for April 25th.
