Among the litany of problems a defendant faces at trial that elude those who simplistically believe forcing every case to trial rather than plea is that witnesses, even in a mundane case that won’t make the front page of the New York Times, don’t want to testify. Maybe they fear police retaliation. Maybe they have skeletons in their closet they would prefer stay there. Maybe they’re afraid of what the neighborhood will think. Maybe they just don’t want to get involved.

There’s rarely much good to come from being a witness for the defense. They don’t hand out medals and rarely does anyone extol your bravery for being so honest for the benefit of that mutt everybody knows is guilty. So why do it?

Then add the high profile case problem, particularly when the defendant is someone like Ghislaine Maxwell, not merely despised but a proxy for Jeffrey Epstein, who was about as hated as a defendant gets. What possible benefit comes from associating yourself with her defense?

Sure, the defendant has the right to subpoena witnesses, but no one wants to call a hostile witness to the stand only to have them angry that they’re there and seize the opportunity to pay you back, cut your throat. They won’t cooperate with prep. They may not even be willing to tell you what they saw, know or remember. And this is who you’re going to force into the courtroom when your life depends on it?

Of four putative “victims” who testified for the prosecution, only one did so using her name. The other three testified anonymously, and the media was kind enough not to out them during the course of the trial. But the allegation is that they were underage sex victims, which provides a strong argument favoring anonymity. It wasn’t a particularly controversial request from the prosecution.

Now that the prosecution has rested, one of Maxwell’s lawyers, Bobbi Sternheim, sought anonymity for three defense witnesses.

It is not yet clear what sort of defense Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers might mount or whether she might testify in her own defense, but in the letter to Judge Alison J. Nathan, Ms. Sternheim suggested that some potential defense witnesses might not be willing to testify if they had to do so using their real names.

“The court’s ruling on this issue may impact the willingness of these witnesses to testify,” Ms. Sternheim wrote on Sunday, “thereby compromising Ms. Maxwell’s right to present her defense.”

Before the prosecution ends its case, the defense remains in a state of limbo, unsure what the government will proffer, what they need to counter and how best to do so. You prepare as much as possible for as many eventualities as you can imagine, but no matter how hard you try, trials never happen quite the way you anticipate. So flexibility, tolerance for ambiguity, frames the defense until the prosecution rests its case. Then, it’s time to make the hard decisions and pick your poison.

Presumably, the defense has decided that the three witnesses at issue are important and they’re ready to take the leap and request that the court grant them the ability to testify anonymously. This doesn’t mean their true identities will be concealed from the government, who will within minutes have access to every aspect of their lives, but from the public. Whether the media will honor the ruling is another matter. Same with spectators, who might threaten to doxx the witnesses no matter what. But the only option Bobbi has is to ask Judge Nathan, and so she has.

It is not unheard of for prosecutors to seek anonymity for witnesses in cases like Ms. Maxwell’s, which involve alleged sexual assault victims, or in trials with testimony from undercover officers or agents or vulnerable informants.

But legal experts interviewed on Monday said they were not aware of trials in which defense witnesses had appeared under a pseudonym or a partial name, as Ms. Maxwell’s witnesses are requesting to do.

It may be that there is some parity in the justification for the request that isn’t apparent from the request. Maybe these are other “Epstein” victims who will testify about how Maxwell, too, was a victim, or tried to help them. Until they testify, we won’t know. But it is unusual, something I can’t remember having ever happened before.

Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School and a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said she did not believe Judge Nathan would grant a defense request for anonymity even in a high-profile case without a showing of exceptional circumstances.

“There are lots of cases where witnesses would prefer not to be entangled in something,” she said, “and I just don’t think that that’s an adequate reason for anonymity.”

That a fact witness would prefer anonymity, if not to testify at all, is pretty much the norm. That a witness doesn’t want to be associated with a notorious defendant is hardly surprising, and can well be argued is part of the gig. The prosecution isn’t deeply concerned that witnesses that might hurt its case flee from the defense. In theory, they should desire to “do justice” by testifying for the wrongly accused defendant. In reality, screw that. The defendant is going down and they have no intention to go down with them, as notorious-adjacent.

Ms. Sternheim’s letter did not identify the three witnesses or explain why they were requesting anonymity.

It would have been folly for Bobbi to name the witnesses or provide any details beyond the obvious in her letter. The expectation is that Judge Nathan will seek the explanation in camera, as you can’t unring a bell. There may be a more specific reason why the defense requests anonymity or it may be no more than the witnesses refuse to testify in this front-page debacle and be tainted as Friends of Ghis for the rest of their lives.

But for those who adore trials, much of the time a bit too much, this is another of the real world problems that arise. Will Maxwell get a fair trial if witnesses refuse to cooperate, refuse to testify, if their names are on the front page of the New York Times? It’s a problem.