NORTH HAVERHILL — A Superior Court judge has denied a request by defense attorneys to obtain the email addresses and phone numbers of members of jury for a sexual assault trial earlier this year.

Following a five-day jury trial in Grafton County Superior Court in January, Dartmouth College alumnus Kyle Clampitt, 27, was convicted of 12 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault for the rape of an 18-year-old Dartmouth freshman on the roof of a fraternity in 2022 .

Clampitt is being held at Grafton County House of Corrections in North Haverhill and is scheduled to be sentenced on April 14.

In a motion filed Feb. 21, Clampitt’s attorneys petitioned the court “to release contact information for the jury including email addresses and phone numbers for the limited purpose of contacting them about their service in this case.”

Under New Hampshire state court rules, no “party” of a criminal case may contact a juror until 30 days after their service. The 30-day period ended on March 2.

In a brief order turning down the defense team’s motion, Presiding Justice Jonathan Frizzell wrote that there is no statute on the books or court rule “that requires the collection of jurors’ email addresses and phone numbers, let alone requires their disclosure.”

He noted, however, that court rules do allow for disclosure of name, address and age of jurors. Counsel and defense attorneys could reach out to jurors “by way of their mailing addresses, including through some form of mailed communication such as a questionnaire.”

Jurors are under no obligation to respond to any post-trial solicitation or inquiry from either defense attorneys or prosecutors, and are free to ignore the request.

It’s unclear why Clampitt’s defense attorneys want to contact the jurors.

In response to why defense counsel had sought jurors’ email addresses and phone numbers, Richard Samdperil, co-counsel on the defense team, said on Monday, “It’s certainly not our intention to pry into jurors’ personal lives or anything related to their privacy. But as lawyers, we are always interested in feedback about a case if a juror is willing to provide it.”

The practice is not uncommon among both defense attorneys and prosecutors.

“We’ll send out juror questionnaires at the end of the case to ask them what they thought was significant or important, what they thought helped them to understand the charges, burden of proof, evidence,” Grafton County State’s Attorney Marcie Hornick said. “It’s a good way to get feedback on how we present as prosecutors a case before a jury.”

There are a variety of reasons defense lawyers might want reach out to jurors after the trial is over, said Julian Jeffereson, a former New Hampshire public defender and now clinical assistant professor specializing in criminal law at University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.

Those reasons include “how the jury reached their decision” and “what evidence did they find the most compelling,” he said.

Also, Jefferson noted, “attorneys like to know how they are perceived, if there is anything that really worked well or not so well.”

Public defenders with little or no staff support often don’t have the resources to follow up with jurors post-trial, according to Jefferson, while defendants with high-powered defense attorneys and are willing to bear the additional costs may do , especially when the stakes of a long prison sentence loom large.

The “million dollar prize” in communicating with jurors post-trial would be to discover “something improper occurred” either during trial or deliberations “that could provide the basis for a new trial,” he said.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.