The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Trial consultant calls speedy Trump jury selection ‘a travesty’
Anyone following the criminal trial of defendant Donald John Trump has seen the clipped bios of the 12 Manhattan jurors: Two corporate lawyers, a salesperson originally from Ireland, a wealth manager born in Lebanon, a person who consumes news from both Fox and MSNBC, and on and on.
That tells us what these people are, Paul Tieger observes. But with the trial fully underway just a week after the first prospective jurors paraded into the chilly courtroom, it’s not enough.
Who, really, are these jurors weighing the guilt or notguilt of a former president for the first time in history? What are their personality types? Their motivations? Judge Juan Merchan and the lawyers on both sides don’t know that, at least as far as we can see.
That’s a big problem especially for the prosecution in the view of Tieger, a behavioral science expert, author and jury consultant in Hartford. Merchan and the lawyers picked the 12 regular jurors by midday last Thursday, even after taking Wednesday off, even after a slow first day.
“For me to see maybe the most important trial in American history pick a jury in three days, it’s a travesty,” Tieger said. “The flaw in the system is, it’s unlikely that they probed deeply enough.”
In 35 years working on cases, Tieger has seen jury selection take weeks for panels of six plus two alternates. Lawyers ask piercing questions. Consultants like him pore over clues. What was missing in the Trump trial? Tieger is clear: a dive into the psychological profiles of the jurors in order to seat a panel as unbiased, or at least openminded, as possible.
And that takes time no one spent as Trump scowled and slept his way through four days of jury selection.
Tieger’s conclusion: “This does not look like an unbiased jury.” It favors Trump in his view, or at least it includes several who appear likely to lean toward the man accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a hushmoney payment for a sexual encounter.
Yes, the would-be jurors answered 42 questions in advance. With their answers in hand, Merchan screened each prospect, one-by-one. But the queries mainly asked about their jobs and lives; whether they had an unshakable bias; and whether they were close to a person who might sway them.
The questionnaire asked ten different ways whether they were willing and able to set aside preconceived ideas. No one was naive enough to seek a jury without set notions about this defendant, as we would see in a typical trial.
Question 32: “Do you have any feelings or opinions about how Mr. Trump is being treated in this case?”
Question 33: “Can you give us your assurance that you will decide this case solely on the evidence you see and hear in this courtroom and the law as the judge gives it?”
“It’s a fantasy to think people can give their assurance about this,” Tieger asserted.
Judges in general, Tieger said, have little appreciation for the effects of psychological traits in jurors. “Because they’re in authority, they think they can override or somehow influence a juror to dismiss those opinions….It doesn’t happen in a marriage, it doesn’t happen in a trial. It doesn’t happen anywhere.”
I called a family member who was at the screening on that first day, as a prospective juror. He believed he could have decided the case on its merits and I believe him. He was dismissed for other reasons.
My family member was in the first panel of 18 prospective jurors after Merchan had culled a larger group of about 100 in half by asking two overriding questions, row-by-row. Did they believe they could be fair and impartial? Was there any other reason that might prevent them from participating?
Merchan then questioned the prospects one at a time. “It was not a fast process,” my family member told me. Merchan sternly tore into the defense at times but showed great compassion about my family member’s circumstances.
As for Trump: “He looks better in photos than he looks in person.” When the jurors filed in, “he’s squinting, he’s puffy. You can’t even see his eyes.”
“He was sleeping the whole time I was there once we were seated.”
My family member left before defense lawyers and prosecutors questioned prospective jurors. Tieger, following the news coverage, is certain the process fell short.
He has written five books on behavior and personality types including “Do What You Are,” which has sold over 1 million copies. He has worked on the assisted suicide case against Dr. Jack Kevorkian in Michigan and several highprofile murder cases in Connecticut.
Tieger’s consulting business, SpeedReading People, uses a modified form of the Myers-Briggs test to determine people’s typical traits. “Personality type trumps demographics almost every time,” Tieger told me. “If somebody is willing to be on this jury where they literally could be putting their lives in jeopardy… I want to know why.”
We looked over the profiles of jurors in the New York Times. One watches both MSNBC and Fox News. “I would be very worried about that juror if I was the prosecution,” Tieger said. “It’s not a credible answer to me.”
Then there’s the juror who “appreciates Mr. Trump’s candor.” Seriously? The guy who has been documented to have told thousands of lies while in office? “That means that she thinks Trump tells the truth. There’s something really, really wrong with picking that juror,” said Tieger, a not-unbiased, anti-Trumper.
This is detailed stuff, not squishy. One example of a telling personality trait is whether a person acts and perceives the world based on the concrete reality of what he or she sees and hears, or on a more abstract set of thoughts and ideas. The former is more likely to support Trump, Tieger said.
The numbers work against a conviction since one holdout gives Trump a hung jury, which the Republican is certain to claim as exoneration. And the news reported about the jurors leads Tieger to say a conviction is a longshot, although of course we don’t know what will happen in the trial.
“I think that is a serious problem for the prosecution and potentially for democracy,” he said. “If Trump even gets a hung jury, it’s a big win for him.”