Jury selection in former President Donald Trump’s New York trial has concluded, offering a glimpse into the types of people who will determine whether to convict him of felony counts of falsifying business records before the 2024 presidential election.
By April 19, the fifth day of the trial, the court had selected all 12 jurors—seven men and five women—and six alternates. Of note, two of the jurors are lawyers, raising questions about how their decision-making will differ from others observing the trial.
While some jurors said they could be fair and impartial, a huge swath of the voir dire was dismissed after Judge Juan Merchan asked them to raise their hands if they couldn’t do so.
Lawyers spent days quizzing dozens of New Yorkers to choose the panel that has vowed to put their personal views aside and impartially judge whether the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is guilty or not.
The jury is composed of a sales professional, two engineers, an English teacher, an investment banker, a retired wealth manager, a speech therapist, an e-commerce professional, a physical therapist, an employee at an apparel company, and two lawyers.
The alternates include an IT worker and a woman who works for a fintech company.
The jurors were asked about the news sources they used. Mainstream outlets like Reuters, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal came up in many of the answers.
Unfair Venue?
The venue, located in liberal Manhattan, has been called into question by President Trump and others. On social media, he called it the “2nd Worst Venue in the Country” and previously requested to move the trial to a different location.
He’s raised similar objections about his trial in Washington, which, like New York City, saw overwhelming support for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Both sides had a series of peremptory strikes, or opportunities to remove jurors without showing cause. The jurors also had to respond to a questionnaire covering topics such as whether they worked for President Trump’s campaign.
“Trump’s team did a good job researching the potential jurors’ social media and getting several removed for cause,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Epoch Times.
“That saved them valuable peremptory challenges. But they still used too many challenges too quickly. That’s why they got stuck with jur[or] 11 who admitted [she] didn’t like Trump’s persona.”
Juror 11, who works at an apparel company, said she did not like President Trump’s “persona.” After exhausting their peremptory challenges, President Trump’s attorneys asked Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss her because of her negative opinions. The judge ruled that this wasn’t enough to remove her because she had also said she could put that aside to be fair and impartial.
“I don’t like his persona,” she said. “I don’t like some of my coworkers, but I don’t try to sabotage their work.”
“He just seems very selfish and self-serving so I don’t really appreciate that in any public servant, so I don’t know him as a person, so I don’t know how he is in terms of his integrity,” she added. “It’s just not my cup of tea.”
John Shu, a constitutional law expert who served in both Bush administrations, told The Epoch Times that Judge Merchan should have removed juror 11 based on her comments.
Mr. Shu wondered whether either side was employing jury consultants and said President Trump’s legal team seemed “a little cavalier.” “I’m a little surprised,” he said. “It’s not clear to me that the Trump team has or is using an official jury consultant.” He added that jury consultants are “incredibly important, especially in high-profile or celebrity trials.”
Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, two of President Trump’s attorneys, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.
The venue in this case could set a precedent for the location of future cases as well. Strategist John Feehery told The Epoch Times: “If the current trial sets a precedent, and it might, it is a very troubling precedent. Using the legal system in a highly partisan jurisdiction to play partisan politics is deeply troubling.”
“I hope that this is a one-off, driven by Trump derangement syndrome, but once a political party goes down this path, inevitably others will follow,” he said.
Lawyers as Jurors
Another twist in President Trump’s “hush money” saga emerged when two lawyers were chosen as jurors—a somewhat unusual occurrence that could have unpredictable effects on the deliberations.
Jurors 3 and 7 are lawyers. Juror 3 is a corporate lawyer, originally from Oregon, who gets their news from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Google. Juror 7 is a civil litigator who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and said there were likely some Trump administration policies he disagreed with.
“Lawyer jurors are always risky for the prosecution because they can sway the entire panel,” Mr. Rahmani said.
“And lawyer jurors in a case like this are especially bad because the state is relying on a tenuous legal theory that the false business records were to further or cover up a campaign finance violation,” he said. Lawyer jurors, he added, might “see right through that argument” and find President Trump not guilty of the felony charges sought by Mr. Bragg, but convict him of the lesser charge of misdemeanor business records fraud, which carries a lighter maximum penalty of one year in prison.
Chicago-based trial consultant Galina Davidoff told Politico that lawyers aren’t “emotional thinkers.” Ms. Davidoff added that their profession “requires them to do analysis, and emotional thinkers get more easily swayed by the side that goes first, that tells a good story.”
Mr. Shu was skeptical about how jurors would process the accusations against President Trump. “The jury doesn’t deal with arguments of law, only the judge does … The jury is only in charge of determining the facts. Whether jurors are more amenable to a particular legal argument; technically, that’s not supposed to have any bearing on their analysis of the evidence and determination of the facts.
While Mr. Shu didn’t think it was “inherently bad” to have lawyers as jurors, he said there were “valid concerns” that lawyers as jurors could exercise “disproportionate influence” on the jury and its deliberations because other jurors might view them as more knowledgeable.
He also said “It’s important to note” that the two attorneys “both work at major law firms,” which tend to be liberal in their ideological bent.
A recent study from Notre Dame Law Professor Derek Mueller showed the pro-bono amicus briefs from the largest law firms skewed liberal. Another study from 2015 scored attorneys according to their ideological leaning and found that the most liberal-leaning were attorneys who worked at one of the 25 largest law firms.
Is It Possible to be Impartial With a Defendant Like Trump?
Trump has spent the week sitting quietly in the courtroom as lawyers press potential jurors on their views about him in a search for any bias that could preclude them from hearing the case.
The trial is more personal than his other criminal cases and refocuses attention on allegations that he had an affair with adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels.
Jurors are supposed to deal with a case impartially and fairly. But it’s unclear how well these jurors could achieve that when the defendant is a former president who has been the subject of intense media scrutiny for almost 10 years.
“We all have prior opinions on the defendant, unless you’ve been living in a cardbox,” Kara McGee, a juror who was excused from the trial, said.
Mr. Shu noted that President Trump’s fame, high profile, and celebrity were very real challenges for the trial, including jury selection. “I don’t think there’s anyone in New York City who hasn’t heard of Donald Trump,” he said.
“I think there’s always the possibility that a potential juror lies in order to get on the jury, especially about whether he or she can be truly fair and impartial,” he said. “That wouldn’t surprise me.”
Besides political bias, there are questions about the psychological toll of dealing with such a high-profile case. The atmosphere surrounding President Trump’s trial became even more tense on April 19 when a man set himself on fire outside of the courthouse.
One woman who had been chosen to serve on the jury was dismissed Thursday after she raised concerns over messages she said she got from friends and family when aspects of her identity became public. She said she had slept on the decision and believed she could not be fair and impartial after all, as her circle would “push things” and she would be influenced.
On Friday, another woman broke down in tears while being questioned by a prosecutor about her ability to decide the case based only on evidence presented in court.
“I feel so nervous and anxious right now,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t want someone who feels like this to judge my case either. I don’t want to waste the court’s time.”
Arguments are scheduled to start on Monday.
The Associated Press, Catherine Yang, and Michael Washburn contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
