Panel Rules for Disclosure of Jurors' Addresses

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A three judge panel has reversed and vacated a ruling by the judge presiding over the NECC criminal cases in which he refused to provide the addresses of the 12 jurors who decided the case against Glenn Chin, who was convicted on racketeering and mail fraud charges.
In a 27-page ruling written by Judge David J. Barron the First Circuit Court of Appeals today vacated the order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns.
Citing a prior appeals court decision in a case brought by the Boston Globe, the court said Stearns failed to make a particularized finding that justified withholding the jurors' addresses.
The suit was filed by WBUR the public radio station owned by Boston University. WBUR had filed a request for the names home addresses of the jurors who decided the case against Chin.
Chin was a supervising pharmacist for the New England Compounding Center, the company blamed for a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak. The jurors cleared Chin on 25 counts of second degree murder, but convicted him on racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy charges.
Stearns not only refused to provide the jurors addresses but refused to provide even the names of the jurors until Chin had been sentenced, which didn't occur until several weeks following the jury verdict
The appeals court said that before it could restrict access to jurors names and addresses a judge must first make "the kind of particularized findings that could justify either the non-disclosure of that information or the disclosure of it only with lawful conditions tailored to those findings."
In remanding the case back to the district court, the panel instructed Stearns "to follow the rule set forth in re. Globe and to unseal the jurors' names and addresses as WBUR requested."
The decision marks the second time a Stearns decision in the NECC cases has been reversed by an appeals court. Another appeals panel reversed Stearns decision to dismiss charges against three of the original 14 defendants. Two of those defendants, Kathy Chin and Michelle Thomas are scheduled to go to trial March 25.