Trump poses unique challenges for jury
Published on: Saturday, April 13, 2024
By: AFP
Trump has been at the centre of the US political world for nearly 10 years now and a figure in the New York tabloids going back decades.
WASHINGTON: Three months ago, Donald Trump took the stand before a jury of nine in a New York courtroom without his typical bombast or ranting. The former president’s complaints about the case and his sparring with the judge took place out of the jury’s sight in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, and he gave quick, scripted testimony lasting about three minutes.
The following day, however, Trump found a way to protest the trial with the jury’s eyes on him, storming out during the closing argument delivered by Carroll’s lawyer.
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“The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” Judge Lewis Kaplan announced, in case any jurors had missed it.
That same afternoon, the jury returned an $83.3 million verdict against Trump for defaming Carroll — a massive figures that the columnist’s attorneys attribute in part to Trump’s protest.
“I think it hurt him terribly,” Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan told CNN’s Anderson Cooper at the time of Trump’s stunt.
“I mean, our whole case was about the fact that Donald Trump is unable to follow the law, unable to follow the rules. He thinks they don’t apply to him.”
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Beginning Monday, Trump will once again sit before a jury in New York, this time with even higher stakes. The jury of 12, along with six alternates, will be chosen from hundreds of New Yorkers after an exhaustive jury selection process that could stretch beyond the first week of the trial.
Choosing a jury will be no easy task when the defendant is a former president who has been at the centre of the US political world for nearly 10 years now and a figure in the New York tabloids going back decades.
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“The problem for both Donald Trump’s attorneys and the prosecution’s attorneys is they’ve got to figure out how to pick a jury for the case who are neutral — and good luck,” said Steve Tuholski, a partner at Delphi Litigation Strategies who works on witness training and jury selection.
“I can’t imagine there are many people, especially in New York, that haven’t made up their mind one way or the other about whether he’s a snake or the Messiah. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.”
The hush-money case is the first of four criminal trials Trump will potentially face — and potentially the only one before the 2024 election, even as Trump has campaigned in part on fusing his legal peril with his bid for the White House.
Court officials expect about 100 prospective jurors at a time will be brought into Judge Juan Merchan’s downtown Manhattan courtroom to be vetted when jury selection begins Monday.
Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a CNN legal analyst and former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said that Trump’s attorneys will be looking for jurors who are sympathetic to Trump, of course — but also for anyone who might be an “independent thinker,” willing to stand alone and let a jury hang. A unanimous verdict is required for conviction.
“If you’re Trump, you’d love an acquittal, but if you can’t get an acquittal, you’d want them to hang, because then there’s no conviction before the election,” Agnifilo said.
In the 2020 election, Manhattan voters chose President Joe Biden over Trump 86% to 12%. But just having political views about Trump, for or against, won’t be a reason for potential jurors to be dismissed.
“People are going to have an opinion about Trump. That doesn’t mean they can’t be fair and impartial about the evidence and their burden,” Agnifilo said.
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