s of prospective jurors,10 it unnecessarily downplayed the relevance of this information to intelligent peremptory challenges.11 Indeed, racial, ethnic and socio-economic undercurrents are present in every case involving an anonymous jury. Trial judges should acknowledge this fact and permit some inquiry into group affiliations and approximate community in lieu of names and addresses. Because such disclosure does not undermine the purpose of juror anonymity and more than adequately substitutes for the information normally inferable from names and addresses, it should be permitted in every case using the procedure. Some aspects of juror anonymity may even work to a defendant's advantage. Assuming attorneys are able to discern subtle prejudices from a prospective juror's group affiliations, anonymity equally restrains both sides from eliminating members of the jury pool with undesirable demographic characteristics.12 Although defense attorneys may be unable to weed out jurors with group characteristics that are supposedly prejudicial to criminal defendants, pro-secutors will similarly be unable to detect jurors from supposedly sympathetic jurors.13 This equality of ignorance may favor defendants. Because conviction requires a unanimous verdict, anonymity increases the possibility of a hung jury by increasing the liklihood that jurors associated with religous, ethnic or socio-economic groups favoring particular defendants will slip through the voir dire. One writer has argued that equal access to information about the jury panel is crucial to a fair voir dire.14 He noted that, in the past, prosecutors have had unilateral access to governmental agency data on prospective jurors.15 Thus, the prosecution enjoys a potential systemic advantage in every case.16 He concludes that a relatively broad voir dire is necessary to remedy this institutional disparity.17 One might more readily conclude, however, t...
