Law: The Juror as Celebrity

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Does postverdict press scrutiny prevent abuses or create them?

Last April before the trial began, the federal prosecutor warned that the jurors in the case would "become celebrities of a sort." And after they decided that John Hinckley was not guilty by reason of insanity,* the twelve Washington men and women were indeed pinioned in the spotlight of press attention. Reporters and TV crews were waiting when they arrived home. Several found the coverage so noisome that they temporarily moved out. Two others took the opportunity to complain publicly that they had been pressured into agreeing to the verdict. Eager journalists flew one of them to New York City and Boston for TV shows. Recalls Juror Maryland Copelin: "I did just about every radio show there is. I didn't know there were so many of them."

The experience of the Hinckley jurors may have been welcome to some and unwelcome to others. But it was not unique. Citizens chosen to serve in major trials these days may be well advised to pack some Pan-Cake makeup along with their toothbrushes, for much of the global village is likely to be looking in. A Massachusetts lawyer tells the story of some women who were upset when an extended court session forced them to miss hairdresser appointments they had scheduled because of the TV coverage. Jurors judging Convict Author Jack Henry Abbott received hate calls after announcing their verdict. In Atlanta, those sitting on the case of Accused Killer Wayne Williams promised one another not to talk to the press. Explains one: "We didn't want harassment when it was all over."

But vowing to keep mum may not stop the harassment. Local papers will often assign a team of four or five reporters to badger jurors in the first days after a trial. Says the New York Post's combative Steve Dunleavy: "I love to get inside a juror's head." Anthea Frankl sat on the White Plains, N.Y., murder trial growing out of the Stouffer's Inn fire that killed 26 business executives. She saw so many newspeople that she began to rate them, from the New York Times ("totally ethical") to a local Westchester County, N.Y., paper that printed a significant error although she had warned them of it.

Jurors sometimes have their own reasons for talking. Money is one. When journalists declined to pay a fee to one Hinckley juror, her husband complained, "Why should she spend her time so you can make money on her? What's in it for her?" Another motivation for telling their stories is to fight back. When the judge in the Stouffer's Inn case threw out the jury's conviction, the next day's newspapers were filled with disgruntled reactions from jurors defending their verdict.