What do sequestered jurors do

District Judge I. Already separated from loved ones for weeks, some jurors were asking for conjugal visits. It was the first, and still the only, case in the Brooklyn federal courthouse to have an anonymous and fully sequestered jury, Glasser said, and he was unsure how to respond to the request. So were the fellow judges he consulted. High profile trials demand much more of jurors personally than other cases do.

They can last for weeks or months, attract intense media attention, expose jurors to physical threats and emotional stress, and force them into long periods of isolation, with only their fellow jurors and court personnel for company. There were no such juror irregularities in the trial, and Gotti was found guilty of all 13 charges against him, including murder and racketeering.

He spent the rest of his life in prison. Federal judges have adopted a wide range of precautions to ensure that juries are protected from threats or harassment in high-profile cases. In some cases, they work with the U. Marshals Service to sequester jurors, housing them at hotels whose locations are kept secret and transporting them to the courthouse from varying pickup locations and in varying types of vehicles. In such cases, precautions are taken to minimize any risk of prejudice to either party.

During the trial, Gotti misbehaved in a number of ways in an attempt to distract jurors and others in the courtroom, Gleeson recalled. Courtroom shenanigans were the least of U. District Judge Anna J. As supporters of the defense flooded traditional and social media with references to the case and made persistent threats against those involved in the judicial proceedings, Brown focused on seating a fair and impartial — and safe — jury.

Jurors who decide a case based on information they gathered from any source outside the courtroom may be accused of committing juror misconduct , which may lead to a new trial. Sequestering the jury makes it harder for jurors to have their minds swayed by outside information.

It reduces pressure on jurors to vote a certain way, and it helps prevent harassment, threats, or actual violence from non-jurors who want to influence the outcome of the case. Many jurors worry about being placed on a sequestered jury when they show up for jury service. Although sequestration is rare, juries that are sequestered sometimes find that the psychological stress of being isolated from family and friends and the feeling of pressure to decide the case outweigh the benefits of being able to focus on the evidence presented in court.

Also, some research indicates that sequestered juries will rarely represent a true cross-section of the community because many people cannot serve on a sequestered jury due to work or family duties — single parents, for example, cannot leave their children home alone while the jury is sequestered.

A jury may be sequestered for several reasons. The jury may be sequestered in a high-profile case, or they may be sequestered when it is believed the case is one that would be likely to lead to jury tampering or threats against the members of the jury.

A jury is a group of individuals selected to hear the evidence in a trial and to render a verdict. Potential members of a jury are summoned to court by receiving a jury duty notice. The prosecutor and defense attorney then use a process called voir dire to select a jury, during which jurors are questioned to determine if they have any potential biases. Jurors can be removed from the jury pool for cause, which means the juror has a potential conflict of interest and can't possibly be fair on the case, such as having been the victim of a similar crime or being related to the defendant.

The attorneys can also dismiss a certain number of members of the jury through peremptory challenges, which means they do not need to give a reason.