The search for a jury continues in the criminal trial surrounding Donald Trump's hush payments to Stormy Daniels. Trump's lawyer fears bias.
NEW YORK (AP) — The judge presiding over the criminal trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump said opening arguments could begin as early as Monday. The jury selection process had accelerated and Trump had to listen to a lot from the people who could soon decide his fate.
Trump's lawyers repeatedly argued Tuesday that old social media posts from many of the prospective jurors or their friends showed they were not open about their hostility toward him. Prosecutors argued that old, stupid jokes on the Internet were not a reason to remove someone from the board.
Criminal trial against Trump – A third of the necessary jury has already been found
Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee in November's US election, listened for hours as potential jurors expressed their opinions of him - some blunt, some reserved and some just plain funny.
By day's end, seven people had been sworn in as jurors - more than a third of the total number required for a trial with a full jury and six alternates.
If New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan can keep up this pace, the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president will be in full swing in less than a week. And with it a possible turning point for Trump's campaign to return to the White House.
“Stirres up tempers” – Potential jurors discuss Trump’s personality before proceedings
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges that Trump conspired before the 2016 election to pay a porn actress to keep quiet about a sexual liaison with him that occurred years earlier. He then created false documents to hide the true purpose and source of the payment.
The court will need to find 11 more jurors to decide Trump, meaning potential jurors will have more opportunities to weigh in on the embattled politician. Merchan has ordered that the names of potential jurors remain confidential, even though prosecutors and defense attorneys know their names.
Trump “stirs up tempers, he says what he thinks,” said a potential juror who works at a senior care facility. "You can't condemn him for speaking his mind." When Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche asked her what she thought of Trump's outspoken nature, she laughed and said, "Come on, what can you say about that? If I told you all the time what I thought about people - I want to tell people a few things, but my mom said be nice."
Trump's lawyer fears the jury will be biased in the trial
Blanche surveyed the prospective jurors as the selection process began, looking more closely at each potential juror's views of him. Trump's defense team is concerned about trying to select a jury from heavily Democratic Manhattan, where he is unpopular.
Many potential jurors who survived the initial review insisted they could be fair in Trump's trial. And some of them openly refused to reveal their political views, despite repeated requests from Blanche to do so.
A potential juror interviewed Tuesday said he was originally from Mexico but took an oath to become a U.S. citizen in 2017 - the same year Trump was sworn into office. When asked how that might affect his view of the case, the man replied it wouldn't. “Feelings are not facts,” he said. “I’m very grateful to be an American, and this happened in his first year in office.”
“Couldn't have said it better myself” – Jurors give Trump the right not to testify
Another potential juror, a woman wearing black glasses, animatedly discussed how Trump, like any defendant, had the right not to testify if he didn't want to.
“If he decides not to testify [...] that is his right. You can’t assume that makes him guilty,” she said, waving her hand for emphasis. The prosecutor, she said, is "the one who has to present and prove these facts, but as I said, he has the right not to say them." At the end of her remarks, Blanche smiled and said, "I think I do “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“Lock him up” – Anti-Trump posting from potential juror?
Trump's legal team relied on social media posts associated with some potential jurors that defense attorneys said showed those people could not be impartial.
A prospective juror had posted years earlier: “Good news!!! Trump lost the legal battle over his illegal travel ban!!!” Merchan said if the juror had left it at that there would be no problem, but the man’s post continued: “Get him out and lock him up.”
When asked about the post, the man said he no longer believed Trump should be "locked up," to which Trump turned his neck at him and grinned. The judge excluded the man from the jury.
Potential jurors in Trump trial push for facts
Another woman in the jury pool was questioned about a video she posted on social media after the 2020 election that showed people in Upper Manhattan celebrating the election results. The juror said she happened to see the celebration as she parked her car and recorded it for posterity without thinking it would affect her verdict in the case.
"Regardless of what I think about anyone or anything or what I feel politically or what I believe," she said, "a juror's job is to understand the facts of a trial and to make a judgment on those facts."
Blanche argued that she should be fired for cause, calling her Facebook posts "extraordinarily hostile," but the judge disagreed, saying she gave what he considered a reasonable explanation.
Between disinterest and anger - judge warns against Trump's behavior
During the long day of questioning, Trump's mood seemed to fluctuate from disinterested to annoyed. At one point, Merchan warned Trump that he didn't like his reaction to a potential juror. The judge said he saw Trump gesturing and mumbling in response to the potential juror, loud enough for others to hear.
“I will not allow any jurors to be intimidated in the courtroom,” Merchan warned the defense. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass tried to reassure jurors that no one is trying to keep people with political beliefs away from the jury - it's just a matter of finding jurors who won't let those beliefs influence their view of the case.
“It seems that everyone and their mother has an opinion about this case and what the right outcome might be, however uninformed that opinion may be,” Steinglass said. “This case has nothing to do with your personal politics.”
Prosecutor protects potential jurors in Trump trial
Elsewhere, the prosecutor said it was OK to discuss what he called “the obvious”: “The defendant in this case is both the former president and a candidate for that office. No one is saying that you can't be a fair juror because you've heard of Donald Trump. We don’t expect you to have been living under a rock.”
The defense challenged a potential Upper West Side juror over online posts her husband made or shared in 2016, including one that discussed the subject of the Avengers, a group of comic book heroes who band together against Trump. contained. Steinglass argued that Trump's lawyers were making too much of old social media posts. "People post things on social media ... that seem funny at the time, and that's not necessarily as weighty as people think," he said.
The judge agreed. “If this is the worst thing you can find out about this juror,” Merchan said, it gave him more confidence in her ability to be fair and impartial.
“Lesson learned” – Juror stopped postings about Trump
A potential juror asked about her social media posts said they were years old and she had stopped posting about politics. “It got too snappy for me,” she said. “I learned a good lesson.” She said she had trouble sleeping the night before as she thought about the significance of the case, but she stressed she knew she could be fair. “This is a big deal in the grand scheme of things,” she said.
One potential juror said she wasn't particularly interested in politics, but added: "Of course I know about President Trump. I am a woman."
When Blanche asked what she meant by that, she replied: "I'm a woman, he targets a few women, so I would say some of my friends have strong opinions about him." The woman said she didn't know a lot about the allegations.
Another potential juror, a woman who works in cybersecurity, when asked if she had any close friends in the legal industry, said she “dated a lawyer for a while. It ended well.” As some in the courtroom laughed, the woman added: “Sorry, lawyers.”
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on April 17, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.