Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference at the Fulton County Government building in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023.
Joshua Lott | The Washington Post | Getty Images
The Atlanta district attorney asked a judge Wednesday to keep jurors’ names secret in the criminal trials of former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants on Georgia election conspiracy charges.
Fulton County DA Fani Willis in her motion also asked that courtroom cameras not show the jurors during any trial, and bar the publication of written descriptions of the people on a jury.
Willis cited the exposure of the purported names of the 23 members of the grand jury that indicted Trump and his co-defendants.
The DA used the term “doxing,” which is making public personal information about individuals, often with the intent of causing them emotional distress or physical harm. She said that police protected the grand juror to “prevent harassment and violence against them” after conspiracy theory websites published their supposed names and home addresses.
“Based on the doxing of Fulton County grand jurors and the Fulton County District Attorney, it is clearly foreseeable that trial jurors will likely be doxed should their names be made available to the public,” Willis wrote in her motion in county Superior Court.
“If that were to happen, the effect on jurors’ ability to decide the issues before them impartially and without outside influence would undoubtedly be placed in jeopardy, both placing them in physical danger and materially affecting all of the Defendants’ constitutional right to fair and impartial jury,” the prosecutor wrote.
Trump and the other defendants are charged with a wide-ranging scheme to illegally reverse his loss in the state’s 2020 election to President Joe Biden.