Was newspaper right to print jury information?

In September, a court case involving a man named Russel Peeler Jr. was taking place in Connecticut. Peeler was convicted of ordering his younger brother to kill an 8-year-old boy and the boy's mother, and it was up to the jury to decide whether Peeler should get life in prison or the death penalty. While the case was still in session, reporter MariAn Gail Brown wrote an article for the Connecticut Post describing each of the jury members assigned to the case. Not only did she include their names in the article, but she also included each juror's hometown and occupation. After the issue was published many of the jurors became upset and concerned for their safety. One juror and his alternate asked to be excused from the case, fearing for the safety of their lives and the lives of their families. They felt that Brown went against their First Amendment right of privacy by printing their personal information.

In the New York Times Desiree J. Hanford wrote, "The law does not prohibit the publication of jurors’ names, though sometimes judges will decide not to make the names public. That did not happen in this case, and MariAn Gail Brown, the reporter, said that everyone involved knew that she was working on such an article." If that is the case, then the jurors had no reason to feel their privacy was intruded on. James H. Smith, the editor of the Post, agreed with Brown's decision to write the information about the jurors when he said, "The U.S. Constitution calls for a public trial with an impartial jury. How do you know if the jury is impartial if you don’t know who they are and something about them?” Smith is enforcing the public's right to know, and believes it is the public's right to know all they can about a public case, including who the jury members are. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/business/media/17mob.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin


If it is not illegal to publish personal information about jury members in a particular trial, why did the jurors feel their First Amendment right of privacy was infringed on? The case of Showler v. Harper's Magazine Foundation clearly describes the four torts that can be considered invasions of privacy:
1. Intrusion-can include physical or otherwise
2. Public disclosure of private, embarrassing facts
3. False light-misrepresentation
4. Appropriation
http://ca10.washburnlaw.edu/cases/2007/03/06-7001.htm


Perhaps the jurors thought Brown had intruded on and disclosed their private information to the public. Because Peeler was up for charges on murder, the jurors could have been afraid that by disclosing their names and where they lived, Peeler would try to have them killed if he did not like the decision they made. Don't the jurors have a right to be free from harm? If Peelers was given life in prison and wanted to strike out against the jurors who put him away, the article gives him all the information he needs. The article could have been putting them in danger. While I can understand how the jurors might have felt their privacy was intruded upon, the tort of false light would not apply to the jurors because all of the information provided about them in the article did not misrepresent them in any way, it was just the stating of facts.

A question that can be raised is does the jurors' names and other personal information even qualify as news? There is the argument that the mere fact that someone decided to publish it makes it newsworthy and means it should be protected. If that is so, then does the fact that some information is newsworthy overrule the privacy of a citizen?

The Constitutional Rights Foundation makes the claim the media have an "undoubted right to gather news from any source by means within the law." http://www.crf-usa.org/lessons/right_to_know.htm
The CRF is saying that the public's right to know should be enforced over the individual or even government's privacy. According to their stand on the issue, the newspaper should have no regrets in reporting the names and other personal information of the jury members, it is simply doing its Constitutional duty of delivering as much news as possible to the public.

The arguments against publishing personal information are equally persuasive. Phillip Taylor of Privacy and the Press made the point that, "The press is overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and of decency." In his opinion, the media have gone too far in its drive to deliver as much news as quickly as it can. Taylor and many others like him believe the news should not dig into citizen's' personal lives as much as it does and should focus more on delivering the facts without intruding so much. http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/privacyandthepress/part2.htm

Even though it might seem like an invasion of privacy, what The Connecticut Post did by publishing the personal information of the jury was perfectly legal. It was not going against the Constitution and was doing its best to add to the marketplace of ideas. While Brown could have just printed the information and not their names, the fact that she did does not make it an invasion of privacy, just an inconvenience.

Sources:

New York Times article--http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/business/media/17mob.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

Showler v. Harper's Magazine -- http://ca10.washburnlaw.edu/cases/2007/03/06-7001.htm

CRF website-- http://www.crf-usa.org/lessons/right_to_know.htm

Privacy and the Press article--
http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/privacyandthepress/part2.htm