In Trump’s criminal trial, jury selection could be pivotal
NEW YORK
On Monday, several hundred New Yorkers will file into a Manhattan courtroom to be scrutinized by prosecutors and defense attorneys, probed and prodded for signs that they could sway – or stymie – the first criminal trial of a former American president.
Lawyers representing the state of New York and Donald Trump will help select the 12 people who will decide his fate.
The lawyers will try to divine unspoken political biases, opinions about law enforcement and other hidden agendas. The potential jurors, who could face public anger and threats if they are chosen, will be asked about their education, occupations, families and news sources.
The questions will drill slowly deeper: Potential jurors, all from one of the state’s most liberal counties, will be asked to reveal whether they volunteered for or against Trump. Perhaps most critically, they will be asked whether their feelings would interfere with their ability to be fair.
Seating the members of the jury and several alternates could take two weeks or more, and the choices may be as pivotal as any evidence presented in court.
“It’s the most important part,” said Arthur Aidala, a defense attorney whose firm has had many highprofile clients, including Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer. “And the hardest part, too.”
Trump faces several trials, but other cases are mired in delays. The 12 jurors in Manhattan who will decide whether Trump falsified business records to hide an affair with a porn actor will bear unblinking scrutiny: For conservatives, the trial is a chance to expose what they see as an abuse of prosecutorial power and a Democrat-led plot to derail Trump. For liberals, it could be the only test of the judicial system’s power over the former president before the election this fall.
The stakes of jury selection are particularly high for Trump’s team, which is aware of the former president’s poor standing among many in New York County – Manhattan, as most people know it – which overwhelmingly voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. Trump’s legal team sees the case as winnable, although some believe a full acquittal is less likely than the prospect of finding jurors willing to cause a mistrial by holding out against a unanimous guilty verdict, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions.
Each potential juror will answer a uniform set of questions, and lawyers can ask follow-ups. Some queries may be designed to uncover biases against – or allegiances to – Trump, such as whether jurors have any feelings or opinions about how Trump is being treated in this case, or whether they believe a former president can be criminally charged in state court.
Each side will be able to remove a limited number of jurors without explanation, a so-called peremptory challenge. They can also ask for jurors to be removed “for cause” by providing specific reasons they believe a juror cannot be fair and impartial.
Those disqualifications are critical.
“It’s always most important to know who your worst jurors are going to be,” said Renato Stabile, an attorney who does jury consulting. “It’s jury deselection, not jury selection. Because you can only control who you are getting rid of.”
Unlike most trials, where many potential jurors are loath to serve, some may be actively trying to get seated in this case. Michael Farkas, a defense attorney, said that those who seem to be angling for the jury “are the people who are most likely to have a partisan agenda.”
Some may not be completely forthcoming.
“Getting 12 jurors you think you actually know is difficult enough in a regular case,” Farkas said.
“In a case like this, both parties can pretty much rest assured that they are going to have people on the jury that aren’t being completely honest about how they feel.”
At first blush, Trump’s jury pool appears to be unfriendly: 70% of Manhattan’s 1.1 million registered voters are Democrats. Many know the defendant well, since he once called New York his home and made his name in its tabloid newspapers.
Lawyers for both sides will scour potential jurors’ social media accounts as well as their voter registration and voting histories, which will show whether they voted but not for whom.