A New York judge on Thursday effectively barred former President Donald J. Trump from exposing the identities of potential jurors at his first criminal trial later this month, emphasizing a need to protect those who might decide the highly sensitive case.
The judge presiding over the trial, Juan M. Merchan, granted a request from the Manhattan district attorney’s office to withhold the names of jurors from the public. The judge also ordered that their addresses be kept from everyone except the lawyers in the case.
Mr. Trump’s legal team, which is defending the former president from accusations of covering up a potential sex scandal during the 2016 election, agreed that it was appropriate to keep the jury’s information private.
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Todd Blanche, declined to comment Thursday.
New York State does not allow juries to operate in full anonymity, meaning that defendants are allowed to know jurors’ names. Justice Merchan, however, moved to shield the names of the jurors in Mr. Trump’s trial from the broader public, underscoring the potential harm in a case involving a polarizing figure like the former president who can whip his supporters into a frenzy.
The restrictions and concerns about juror safety reflect the volatile environment swirling around Mr. Trump’s legal entanglements, including four criminal cases and several civil trials. After Mr. Trump recently lost a civil fraud case in New York, which was brought by the state’s attorney general, envelopes of white powder were sent to both the attorney general’s office and the judge who had overseen the case. The judge was also the victim of a hoax bomb threat on the day of closing arguments.
Jury selection in Mr. Trump’s criminal trial is set for March 25, making it the first prosecution of a former American president. He is charged with a raft of felonies stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign — a payoff that Mr. Trump is accused of hiding from voters.
For now, it is unclear what punishment Mr. Trump might face if he violates the order preventing him from revealing the identity of jurors. The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, had sought to revoke Mr. Trump’s access to juror names if he threatens their safety, but the judge put off ruling on that request.
Instead, Justice Merchan suggested that he would address any potential punishments for Mr. Trump when he rules on another request from Mr. Bragg — that the former president be subject to a gag order.
The order, if the judge approves it, would bar Mr. Trump from “making or directing others to make” statements about witnesses concerning their roles in the case. Mr. Bragg also asked that Mr. Trump be barred from commenting on prosecutors on the case, other than Mr. Bragg himself, as well as court staff members.
It would be just the latest gag order imposed on the former president. In Mr. Trump’s criminal case in Washington, which involves accusations that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election, a judge imposed such an order. And the judge in the civil fraud trial, Arthur F. Engoron, ordered Mr. Trump not to comment on court staff members.
Mr. Trump has railed against the judges, and his campaign has called Mr. Bragg’s request for a gag order “an unconstitutional infringement on President Trump’s First Amendment rights.”
Yet judges typically try hard to protect witnesses and, especially, jurors.
After a federal jury delivered a verdict against Mr. Trump in a recent defamation trial, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the jury not to disclose the identities of the other jurors, and strongly encouraged them to forever remain anonymous. In the federal system, jurors are allowed to remain anonymous, even from parties in the case.
“My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury,” Judge Kaplan said. “And I won’t say anything more about it.”
