scout leaders to meet body max index standards based on their height and weight to be eligible for intense physical activity. this year s jamboree more demanding than in previous years. no word yet from the six women who decided that george zimmerman was not guilty of murder or manslaughter in the shooting death of trayvon martin. the jurors remain anonymous and countless questions about the verdict that only they can answer. criminal defense attorney page pate and beth cars karas in is york. good morning to both of you. good morning. could the jurors remain anonymous forever under court order? they can. jury anonymity protected under state of florida law and if you want to have that. if jurors thought by serving and doing their civic duty that their identity could be
broadcast and people could know who they are, then i think you would have a problem with people wanting to serve. it can be protected. beth, i understand that during trial, but after the trial when everything is over and we live in a transparent society, should jurors remain anonymous? well, it really is kind of contrary to florida law. i mean, they have a very open policy there when it comes to their court records, police records. it s very easy for the public to get a hold of documents there in advance as opposed to other states. the defense has asked that the jurors in this case remain anonymous for six months. just as the judge did in the casey anthony case. he ordered that. the media has already filed a motion a couple days ago saying, look, don t make a decision on not releasing the jurors names until we have a hearing on this because we have a right to know who these jurors are. so, we ll see what judge nelson does. she may have a hearing on it.
lot of scrutiny and this trial watched by millions of people. i think they want to explain how they reached their verdict and i expect someone will. beth, i want to make it clear why the jury might not want to come forward publicly because there have been several angry tweets kind of attacking them, not in a good way. yeah. social media is playing a role now that is actually very troubling in these trials. and we saw threats against witnesses in the jodi arias, now i do mean the arias trial and it is problematic. are they empty threats? yeah, maybe. but they are frightening. i do agree with page, though. jurors do eventually come out, at least one. and i think that they ll at least one will come out to say, look, we followed the law. i m sorry, i do feel maybe i wanted to find them guilty of something. but when you follow the law, which is what we believe we did, we just couldn t convict. beth karas, page pate, thank
but as far as i know, she hasn t ruled yet. i do think people know who these jurors are. i covered trials for 20 years across the country and usually the people in the media know at least some of the jurors and they ll speak out eventually. but in this case, it s a court order. we re not allowed to contact these jurors. what would happen, page, if a juror did? contempt of court. the judge can bring you into court and say, look, i told you not to do this. i can fine you or even send you to jail. beth, you mentioned the jodi arias trial we heard from jurors in that case despite their wish to remain anonymous. i m sorry, i meant casey anthony. those jurors have spoken out. there was no order there. and a number of them have spoken out and everybody knows who they are. the media there worked for months. it was a five-month trial. i meant casey anthony. i apologize.