The U.S. trial of Rafael Caro Quintero—one of the founders of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel—could be conducted with an anonymous jury and evidence protected on national security grounds, following a request to that effect from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The aim is to ensure that the 12 jurors—who will be responsible for determining the drug trafficker’s guilt—remain anonymous, with their home addresses and workplaces kept private; additionally, they would be transported daily by federal marshals and kept separate from the public.
Furthermore, a request was made to apply the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), so that sensitive portions of documents could be redacted or replaced with summaries to prevent the exposure of specific data.
This is not the first such request made in proceedings against Mexican nationals; similar measures were previously implemented in the cases of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Genaro García Luna, the former Secretary of Public Security.
