Allegheny County’s president judge has appointed two attorneys to represent the interests of jurors from the case that prompted a Judicial Conduct Board investigation of Common Pleas Judge Mark V. Tranquilli.
The unusual move comes as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette seeks to obtain the jury list.
Court administrators refused on Feb. 27 to release the names of the jurors who were empaneled in the case of the Commonwealth v. Lamar Rice without providing explanation. Then on Tuesday, President Judge Kim Berkeley Clark appointed attorneys to represent those jurors.
On Feb. 4, Judge Tranquilli was reassigned from criminal court to administrative duties by Judge Clark after a complaint was filed against him, accusing Judge Tranquilli of referring to a black female juror in the Rice case in chambers as “Aunt Jemima.”
According to the complaint, after Rice was found not guilty of possession with intent to deliver, the judge chastised Assistant District Attorney Ted Dutkowski for allowing the juror, a young black woman who wore a hair wrap throughout the trial, to be seated as Juror No. 4 in the first place.
The complaint went on to say that Judge Tranquilli indicated that he knew the woman's "baby daddy" probably sells heroin and that her "presumed bias in favor of heroin dealers had caused or contributed to the not guilty verdict."
Judge Tranquilli’s cases have been reassigned while the investigation in ongoing.
On Wednesday, court administrator Christopher Connors said the attorneys were appointed for the jurors because this case unfolded differently than most.
“Usually, media interest in a case is apparent during a trial, and the trial judge talks directly with the jurors regarding the release of their names at the conclusion of the case,” he wrote. “This is a common practice, and the names are ordinarily released at some point after this occurs.
“Due to the unusual circumstances of this case, however, this did not occur. Therefore, in order to give the jurors an opportunity to consult with someone to understand the process that is occurring, and in order to ensure that any concerns they may have in this case are properly brought to the court's attention for consideration, attorneys have been appointed to represent their interests regarding this motion.”
On March 4, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette filed a formal motion seeking the list so that reporters might be able to interview the jurors about their experiences before Judge Tranquilli during the Rice trial, which concluded with a not-guilty verdict on Jan. 24.
Post-Gazette attorney Laurel Gift filed a motion to intervene in the case and a motion for access to the jurors’ names with Judge Clark, arguing that "the United States has a long tradition of access to jurors' identities, and that such access serves an important function in ensuring transparency in criminal proceedings and public confidence in the judiciary."
In the motion, Ms. Gift wrote that the state Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment provides a "qualified" right of access to juror names, but to deny the release of names, the trial court must find, on the record, that "'closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.'"
In this case, Ms. Gift said, no such findings have been made. There have been no allegations of jury tampering or showing that any juror's safety is at risk, and further, she wrote, the trial has concluded.
Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at St. Vincent College, said that jurors’ names are rarely withheld in a criminal case, and that the move almost always is a result of a potential for retaliation against them by some criminal element.
The idea of making jurors’ names publicly available, Mr. Antkowiak said, is to protect the credibility of the court system. .
Although it is rare to seal a jury list — and, additionally, rare to appoint attorneys to represent individual jurors — Mr. Antkowiak can understand how it might have happened in the current case.
For Juror No. 4, he continued, it’s possible that she would not want to be “identified by this pejorative name” that Judge Tranquilli is alleged to have used.
“There, certainly, is a privacy interest that person has,” Mr. Antkowiak said. “It’s not just being identified as a member of a jury in which something odd happened. It’s personal to the juror — and that, more than anything else, seems to be the motivating factor.
“There’s potential here, at least, for public humiliation.”
In citing the state Supreme Court precedent in Commonwealth v. Long, Ms. Gift wrote, the court found that just a "general concern for harassment or invasion of privacy," is not enough, since that would exist in almost any criminal trial.
Instead, to withhold the names, the Long court wrote, it "must be supported by specific findings demonstrating that there is a substantial probability that an important right will be prejudiced by publicity and that reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect the right."
"The mere fact that there has been some news coverage regarding the present trial does [not] warrant denying the Post-Gazette — and by extension the public — their First Amendment rights,” Ms. Gift wrote.
Attorney Ron G. Jones, who did not return a message seeking comment, was appointed Tuesday to represent Juror No. 4.
Attorney Bryan S. Neft, who previously served as the president of the Allegheny County Bar Association, has been appointed to represent Jurors Nos. 1-3 and 5-13.
He said Wednesday afternoon that he had no comment on the matter.
Paula Reed Ward: pward@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2620 or on Twitter: @PaulaReedWard.
First Published: March 11, 2020, 10:52 p.m.
