You see this all the time. Someone gets indicted for something and the document is full of references to “Cooperating Witness 2” and “UK person 1” and the like, where the identity of the person so described is easily decipherable and frequently obvious to anyone covering the ongoing story.
The question I have is not why don’t they use better pseudonyms, since that’s generally impossible - what makes them transparent is generally the person’s role in the story rather than the specific pseudonym used. Rather, the question is: since it’s pretty obvious who is meant, then why bother with the pseudonym altogether? Is there some legal issue involved?
It’s not always obvious, and when it is obvious it has nothing to do with the pseudonym itself - it wouldn’t matter what name is used for “Cooperating Witness 2” if the details allow one to identify Cooperating Witness 2 by process of elimination.
The parties themselves are usually the ones who request a pseudonym, but particularly vulnerable persons will have their names redacted by default. If you are forced to testify about something very private, such as being the victim of rape, it may be unavoidable that people will identify you, but having your name off the official record is better than nothing.
Or as another example, if you are a minor child of the defendant and a material witness, they aren’t going to drag your name through the papers, even though you may have to take the stand, even though your neighbors will be able to identify you. If you are whisked away across town to live with relatives, for example, your new community won’t necessarily identify you as “Material Witness #1”.
I’d like to add that in documents such as contracts, those pseudonyms are usually used not for confidentiality but because they are drawn up on the basis of boilerplate templates - you want to fill in the names of the parties only once and then use the preworded pseudonym throughout, to minimise the amount of searching- and-replacing that needs to be done (and which always comes with a risk of mistakes). Obviously, this does not explain usage of pseudonyms in court opinions, but since the OP asked about legal documents generally I thought it might be added.
So you think the determining factor for whether a pseudonym should be used is whether it’s obvious who is meant? Who decides that, and how? Isn’t it simpler just to consistently use pseudonyms?
My guess is that in most cases, it won’t be that obvious who the pseudonyms refer to. Bear in mind that the ones we tend to see are in the news, because the actors involved are in the news. That’s a selection mechanism for cases that are out of the ordinary and where it is much easier to work out the connections. But for your average criminal case, if you were handed the document, you wouldn’t be able to put names to the individuals covered by the pseudonyms, without going off and doing a lot of local research.
As for “Individual 1, who was running for President” - once a policy of pseudonyms is established, the prosecutors would use it consistently, especially if a politician is involved. They don’t want any suggestions that they aren’t following the rules because of a partisan reason. Just follow the rules, even though in some cases it will be obvious to whom they’re referring.
When Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte’s former girlfriend sued him for spousal support, there was a court order to keep the participants anonymous. I remember there was a little bit of hand-wringing over how to describe a case featuring a Quebec entertainment billionaire without making it completely obvious who it was.
My job requires me to read a lot of reports written by various law enforcement agencies , criminal complaints and indictments and court decisions. There is a particular style often used in writing these documents where people are not referred to by name but rather by their role - perpetrator, subject, defendant, plaintiff, complainant, appellant ,arresting officer, respondent, victim and so on. This is done even when there isn’t any attempt being made to provide anonymity - here is an example. No one is trying to keep the parties anonymous - the title includes the name of the petitioner and the “main” respondent * - but in the actual text of the opinion they are referred to as “petitioner” and “respondents”. Some of what appears to be use of pseudonyms is no doubt related to this style.
As for “Individual 1, who was running for President” , it is apparently traditional for prosecutors to use pseudonyms to refer to people who were not indicted - and as @Northern_Piper says, once that’s the policy , you stick to it even if the person’s identity is obvious.
the other respondents names are not left out to provide anonymity so much as brevity - it was most likely a long list of prison employees. When government agencies are sued, it’s not uncommon for there to be 10-20 respondents.
We see this in juvenile dependency cases too. The identity of those who call the child abuse hotline is protected by law. But it’s often written up in the detention report like “Reporting party stated she believes her daughter is using again…”
I’d like to chip in that usage of roles rather than names can make the document much more readable. If you have a case that involves many different people, then reading “perpetrator 3”gives you an idea which person (in terms of the role this person has in the case) is being talked about. If the document used John Doe instead, and the last time it talked about John Doe was ten pages ago, then the reader would have to wonder “Who was this John Doe again? That was the witness, wasn’t he?”
I would bet it’s more of a convention done in ALL court cases to obscure the identities of the participants, and only breaks down if there’s significant press coverage of the cases.