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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to keep secret the identities of the jurors who may be chosen to hear the election interference case in the 2020 election in the state of Georgia.
Willis filed this petition after the members of the grand jury who returned the indictment against Donald Trump and his allies were made public online, according to a new court filing filed Wednesday.
Willis is asking the court to “enter an order preventing any defendant, member of the press or any other person from disclosing the identities of potential jurors and planned jurors during the voir dire and trial,” according to the filing.
“Based on the court records search of the Fulton County Grand Juries and the Fulton County District Attorney, it is clearly foreseeable that the trial jurors will likely be wanted if their names are made public,” according to the court. document. “If that were to happen, the effect on the ability of jurors to decide the issues before them impartially and without influence would undoubtedly be jeopardized, placing them in physical danger and materially impairing defendants’ entire constitutional right to a fair justice and impartial jury,” Willis said.
Various outlets reported that names, photographs, social media profiles and even the addresses of homes allegedly belonging to the grand jury members who voted to indict Trump and his 18 co-defendants circulated on social media.
The names of the grand jurors were included in the indictment as a matter of practice for prosecutions in Fulton County. However, the indictment, which is a public record available on the court’s website, does not include their addresses or any other personally identifiable information.
The district attorney’s office said publicly displaying the personal information of grand jury members who voted on the indictment prompted the authorities to implement plans to protect them and “prevent harassment and violence against them”, According to the document.
And he noted that the personal information of Willis and his family members was also shared online.
The case for attempting to interfere in the outcome of the 2020 Georgia election is a criminal case against Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants.
Prosecutors allege Trump ran a “criminal extortion enterprise,” in which he and all other defendants “knowingly and knowingly joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome” of the 2020 US presidential election in Georgia.
All of the defendants have at least one count of violating the Georgia (RICO) statute against them, which has a penalty of five to twenty years in prison.
The indictment is one of four ongoing criminal indictments against Trump and comes in the context of the former president’s broader effort to reverse his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and be re-elected as president of the United States in the 2024 election.
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