Second juror dismissed from Trump’s trial
NEW YORK: A second juror was dismissed on Thursday from Donald Trump’s criminal trial on charges stemming from a hush money payment to a porn star, leaving five members on the panel that will decide the former US president’s guilt or innocence.
Jury selection is continuing.
Earlier, a juror in Donald Trump’s hush money trial was dismissed ater expressing doubt about her ability to be fair and impartial, and the status of a second New Yorker picked for the panel was in limbo amid concerns that some of his answers in court may not have been accurate.
The setbacks in the selection process emerged during a frenetic morning in which prosecutors also asked for 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.
The seating of the full jury — whenever it comes — will be a seminal moment in the case, seting the stage for a trial that will place the former president’s legal jeopardy at the heart of the campaign against Democrat Joe Biden and for weeks of testimony about Trump’s private life before he became president.
The jury selection process picked up momentum on Tuesday with the selection of seven jurors. But on Thursday, Judge Juan Merchan revealed in court that one of the seven, a cancer nurse, had “conveyed that ater 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.
Prosecutors also raised questions about a second juror, a man who works in information technology, saying they had located an article from the 1990s about a man with the same name being arrested for tearing down political advertisements in suburban Westchester County. The posters were on the political right, prosecutors said.
The man said under questioning this week that he had not been convicted of a crime. Merchan asked the juror to come to court Thursday morning for additional questioning.
Twelve jurors and six alternates must be seated to hear the trial. Merchan said on Tuesday that openingstatementscouldbeginassoonasmonday.
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.