A lesser degree of jury secrecy is an issue in the Peterson trial. The judge has allowed prospective jurors to be questioned in open court, but decreed that their names not be revealed. The prosecution and defense had sought that order, suggesting that the media might bother the jury.
Judge Alfred Delucchi also sealed the list of witnesses.
"It's kind of bizarre," said Karl Olson, a San Francisco attorney for The Times, Associated Press and other media companies. He said appellate courts have held that witness lists must be public, and that juries should be anonymous only when the panel could be in danger, such as in organized crime cases.
Even in mobster trials, shielding jurors can be perilous. In a federal prosecution of Gotti, an anonymous juror had undisclosed ties to an Irish American crime group. Juror George Pape was convicted later of soliciting a bribe from Gotti to orchestrate an acquittal.
"The public did not have the opportunity to investigate Pape's background," Leslie said.
In Simpson's 1997 civil trial, an anonymous juror had a daughter who worked for the district attorney's office. The court did not discover the relationship until after the jury had begun deliberations. The juror was dismissed for potential bias.
"Anyone in a position of making important decisions should be accountable in some way, and the ultimate decision-makers are the jurors," Olson said. "People should know who they are."
Attorneys in the Peterson case can't comment on the judge's actions because a gag order forbids all parties to the trial to discuss anything about it.
Gag orders have become a fairly regular feature in celebrity court dramas -- the Jackson and Bryant cases among them.
Sheriff's spokesman Pappas invoked the Jackson order in refusing to acknowledge the Jan. 31 search in Calabasas at the home of pornography producer Marc Schaffel, an associate of the singer. (A judge has unsealed part of the warrant.)
"I'm constrained," Pappas said.
Some judges have gone to greater lengths to draw the shades on star-powered cases.
In 1997, a Los Angeles jurist erased filmmaker Steven Spielberg's name from an indictment that charged a Los Angeles man with stalking him. Spielberg became "John Doe" in the document.
A newspaper eventually learned Spielberg's identity as the alleged victim -- before the defendant's attorney did. At the time, legal experts could recall no other case in which the name of a prominent alleged victim was concealed after an indictment had been returned and a suspect arrested.
