United States v. Susan Harris, No. 13-1741 (7th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseHarris was charged with identity theft. During voir dire the judge introduced himself and explained the process to the potential juror pool. After the deputy swore the jury in, the judge stated: To protect people’s privacy, we try to refer to jurors by numbers now. Now, there is nothing more difficult than an Irishman that grew up in coal mining country to refer to people by numbers, and I’m going to try. So I’ll talk to Juror Number 1, Juror Number 2, and the like. And I’m going to try not to forget and talk to you like you were otherwise a human being. But we do this just to protect your privacy, which is a very important consideration in the modern world. There was no objection. Harris was convicted. During the appeal, the government obtained leave to supplement the record to include affidavits from the Jury Administrator, the Deputy Clerk, and the prosecutor, all effectively stating that the jury was not anonymous and the jurors knew the parties had their identifying information. The government included a blank juror questionnaire form used during the voir dire, with spaces for prospective jurors’ names, addresses, and other identifying information. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the conviction, stating that Harris did not show that the parties were kept from knowing the potential jurors’ names
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