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Jury selection may seem like a boring precursor to the more interesting part of the trial, but it can be critical to the outcome. Starting Monday, the team of lawyers in former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial will try to select the 12 jurors with the best chance of winning, as well as several alternates.
This process often involves eliminating jurors whose opinions could influence the decision, but how can you find someone in Manhattan who doesn’t have an opinion about Donald Trump?
To find out, USA TODAY spoke to jurors and trial experts who found that Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s trial team want to find people with anti-Trump intentions. Mr. Bragg said he may be thinking that Mr. Trump is likely to vote guilty. To defend a conviction on appeal. President Trump also knows that if he wins the November election, he may be able to protect himself from lawsuits for years, even if the jury ends up with a hung jury, so he doesn’t want to be a lone wolf or the judicial system. You might look for people who are distrustful of you.
Joe Elan Demetrius, a jury consultant who has worked on many high-profile trials, including the O. J. Simpson murder case, said this is a case that could bend the usual rules for criminal defendants.
“In a normal criminal case, it’s the prosecution who’s looking for an older white man and the defense’s looking for a minority person, someone who’s against the police, but in this case it’s actually reversed.” she said.
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President Trump is charged with 34 felonies for falsifying business records with the intent to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election, and jury selection will be the first part of the trial, which begins Monday. New York state requires a unanimous verdict from 12 jurors for a conviction.
The business records in question showed payments made by President Trump to former lawyer Michael Cohen for legal services. Prosecutors say these are actually $130,000 in hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from publicizing her sex with Trump and damaging Trump’s 2016 election chances. It is said that it was a redemption for They claim the payments were campaign contributions that exceeded federal limits.
President Trump has maintained his innocence in the case and denied Daniels’ claims.
The jury selection process can take days or even weeks. Both trial teams will be able to use a limited number of “peremptory strikes,” or vetoes, that can be used to exclude future jurors. But once those are gone, the prosecution or defense will be able to name the next potential juror, unless Mr. Marchand hits that person for “reasonable cause.” That means the judge has determined that the person is not qualified to serve on a New York jury or is probably unable to take an impartial position in the case.
Both sides can ask Mr. Marchan to strike the jury based on his answers to questions, but Mr. Marchand won’t necessarily agree. He said before the trial that simply indicating whether a potential juror is a Republican or Democrat is not enough to attack that person for cause.
Bragg’s office declined to comment for this story. Two of Trump’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Here we look at how both sides can approach jury selection.
Are you pro-Trump or anti-Trump?
Prior to the trial, Judge Juan Melchan determined a list of 42 questions that prospective jurors would be asked orally in court, giving both sides the opportunity to ask additional questions.
Marchan did not allow any questions about whether jurors voted or plan to vote for Trump. But he does allow some questions that could reveal jurors’ political preferences. For example, has the potential juror ever attended a Trump rally or an anti-Trump rally? Has the person followed Trump or anti-Trump groups on social media? Where does the potential juror get their news? All of those questions are in the survey.
Trump is unlikely to have many enthusiastic supporters on his Manhattan jury. According to Politico, about 87% of Manhattan residents voted for Joe Biden in the last presidential election.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t political overtones to consider, Mitchell Epner, a longtime New York litigator and former federal prosecutor, told USA TODAY.
“Manhattan Democrats range from the left wing of the Democratic Socialists of America to people who profile as Republicans in other counties,” he said.
Epner added that prosecutors also wouldn’t want jurors with anti-Trump agendas, saying, “If it turns out later that the jurors had an agenda to convict Donald Trump. “That could be the basis for an appeal,” he added.
Are you looking for jurors to try your case?
There are three basic outcomes of a jury trial. Either the jury finds the defendant guilty, the jury acquits the defendant, or the jury is “hung,” meaning the jury cannot reach an agreement and the judge is forced to declare a mistrial. Masu. Unlike when a defendant is acquitted, prosecutors can retry the defendant after a mistrial.
But Epner said cases are not usually retried after a hung jury. Prosecutors are reluctant to bring the case again unless they believe there are larger public policy issues at stake or they are confident a future jury will convict them.
“A hung jury would be a huge win for the defense, especially in this case since there is a strong possibility that the defendant will not be able to get a second trial before the 2024 election,” Epner said. If Trump wins the November election, there will be significant legal questions about whether he could be prosecuted while in office.
This has given Trump’s team even more momentum than the typical defendant to seek out jurors who are not trying to fit in and who might go against the grain.
“Defense attorneys are typically looking for iconoclasts, people who see themselves as mavericks, free spirits, or some kind of counterculture, and who distrust the establishment,” Epner said. .
Social media “polygraph test”
While jurors are answering questions, the trial team will conduct social media checks on potential jurors, similar to a polygraph test, Demetrius said.
In high-profile cases, prospective jurors may change their reactions depending on what they believe either side wants to hear, Demetrius told USA TODAY.
“By looking at their verbal responses to the survey and comparing them to their responses on social media, we can see if they are being honest or if they may be hiding something. ” she says.
Here’s an example of how it might play out. Potential jurors will be asked whether they follow President Trump or anti-Trump groups on social media. If they say they are not, but their profile shows they are, the question is whether they are intentionally lying to increase their chances of being selected for the jury. may occur.
Overcoming challenges and building lasting relationships
Molly Murphy, a trial consultant who has worked on jury selection and trial strategy in hundreds of cases, says jury selection is determined by more than just what lawyers and defendants think about prospective jurors. It is said that there is no. It’s also about what prospective jurors think about the people they question and the defendants who watch them.
“That’s where the connection begins and the jury is evaluating each attorney’s integrity,” Murphy told USA TODAY. “They’re constantly watching how the lawyers act, how Mr. Trump acts, and how the prosecutors act.”
Epner said a trial is an opportunity for both sides to tell their stories, and the story becomes more compelling if the audience, in this case the jury, trusts and likes the storyteller. Building that relationship starts from the beginning.
“It’s very unlikely that someone who is both hated and distrusted will tell a convincing story,” he says.
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