Nurse one of two jurors let go in Trump trial over fears about fairness
Second juror out after concerns raised about his honesty in questionnaire
Two jurors in former US president Donald Trump’s hush money trial were dismissed yesterday, one after expressing doubt about her ability to be fair and impartial and the other over concerns that some of his answers in court may not have been accurate.
The dismissals reduced to five the number of jurors who have been seated for the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
The setbacks in the selection process emerged during a frenetic morning in which prosecutors also asked for Mr Trump to held in contempt over a series of social media posts this week, while the judge in the case barred reporters from identifying jurors’ employers after expressing privacy concerns.
The seating of the full jury – whenever it comes – will be a seminal moment in the case, setting the stage for a trial that will place the former president’s legal jeopardy at the heart of the campaign against Joe Biden and for weeks of testimony about Mr Trump’s private life before he became president.
The jury selection process picked up momentum on Tuesday with the selection of seven jurors. But yesterday, Judge Juan Merchan revealed in court that one of the seven, a cancer nurse, had “conveyed that after sleeping on it overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case”. And though jurors’ names are being kept confidential, the woman said her family members and friends questioned her about being a juror.
A second seated juror was dismissed after prosecutors raised concerns that he may not have been honest in answering a jury selection question by saying that he had never been accused or convicted of a crime.
The IT professional was summoned to court to answer questions after prosecutors said they found an article about a person with the same name who had been arrested in the 1990s for tearing down political posters pertaining to the political right in suburban Westchester County.
A prosecutor had also disclosed that a relative of the man may have been involved in a deferred prosecution agreement in the 1990s with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Mr Trump’s case.
Because the juror was questioned yesterday at the judge’s bench, off-microphone and out of earshot of reports, it was not known whether the man confirmed or denied either instance was connected to him.
Twelve jurors and six alternates must be seated to hear the trial. Judge Merchan said on Tuesday that opening statements could begin as soon as Monday.
The process of picking a jury is a critical phase of any criminal trial but especially so when the defendant is a former president and the presumptive Republican nominee. Prospective jurors have been grilled on their social media posts, personal lives and political views as the lawyers and judge search for biases that would prevent them from being impartial.
Inside the court, there’s broad acknowledgment of the futility in trying to find jurors without knowledge of Mr Trump. A prosecutor this week said that lawyers were not looking for people who had been “living under a rock for the past eight years”. But yesterday’s events laid bare the inherent challenges of selecting a jury for such a landmark, high-publicity case. More than half the members of a group of 96 prospective jurors brought into the courtroom were dismissed, most after saying they doubted their ability to be fair and impartial.
After dismissing from the jury the nurse who had already been selected, Judge Merchan ordered journalists in court not to report prospective jurors’ answers to questions about their current and former employers.
He said that “as evidenced by what’s happened already, it’s become a problem”. The answers also will be redacted from court transcripts.
Prosecutors had asked that the employer inquiries be axed from the jury questionnaire. Defence lawyer Todd Blanche responded that “depriving us of the information because of what the press is doing isn’t the answer”.
On Monday the district attorney’s office sought a $3,000 fine for Mr Trump for three Truth Social posts they said violated the order. Since then, though, prosecutors say he has made seven additional posts that they believe violate the order.
Several of the posts involved an article that referred to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen as a “serial perjurer,” and one from Wednesday repeated a claim by a Fox News host that liberal activists were lying to get on the jury, said prosecutor Christopher Conroy.
The trial centres on a $130,000 payment that Mr Trump’s lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, made shortly before the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Mr Trump from becoming public in the race’s final days.