Of the 1.4 million adults living in Manhattan, it would be nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn’t already have an opinion about Donald Trump.
But 12 of them will be chosen to ultimately decide his fate as the first former president to appear in a criminal trial that begins Monday.
They will be chosen from hundreds of eligible New York residents to serve in the landmark case in which Trump is accused of concealing a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about their alleged 2006 affair.
If found guilty by his peer group, he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison for a saga that began 18 years ago and has seen wall-to-wall news coverage not just in the Big Apple, but around the world. press has had. .
Will it be impossible to find a dozen people who don’t already have a bias against the presumptive Republican nominee for president? Experts who specialize in jury selection tell DailyMail.com that this is possible.
Jury selection in Donald Trump’s hush money trial begins Monday in Manhattan. The process of choosing a 12-person panel to decide the former president’s fate could be an arduous one
Selecting an impartial and impartial panel in a highly publicized scandal — and in a city made up mostly of Democrats — is a monumental task for the court, and could take anywhere from five days to two weeks.
The jury will consist of people who live in Manhattan, speak English, are US citizens and have not been convicted of a crime.
Both sides want New Yorkers who can both help and listen to their cause, but who are not biased and may have already jumped to conclusions.
During the difficult process that starts on Monday morning, the judge will ask each prospective member out loud 42 questions.
The topics range from their careers and family lives to what news networks they watch and whether they have belonged to a political organization.
Follow-up questions will follow, and attorneys for both sides will have a limited opportunity to challenge the jury.
Lawyers will have the opportunity to dismiss jurors and bombard them with questions before they are allowed to participate in the trial that could last up to six weeks.
Stormy Daniels with Donald Trump in 2006. She claims they had an affair after meeting at a golf tournament
“I think the biggest challenge for judges and lawyers will be determining who is cheating and who is not,” Margaret Bull Kovera, professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told DailyMail.com.
“These are the kinds of cases where people can lie to get on or off the jury.”
She said there is a possibility that a juror could try to be selected driven solely by the chance of finding Trump guilty or acquitting him, without even hearing the evidence.
They could also see it as an opportunity to sell their story, despite the threat of anger from members of the public who disagree with the verdict.
“The potential for bias is significant,” Valerie Hans, a law professor at Cornell University, told DailyMail.com.
“Jurors may have already formed an opinion about the case based on what they have heard through their favorite media; therefore, it becomes important to discover what those opinions are, and whether they prevent people from being fair and impartial.”
The potential jurors Trump’s legal team and Manhattan prosecutors will be looking for will be polar opposites.
Hans said Trump’s team will look for conservatives who have supported him in the past and believe the prosecution is politically motivated.
Since he was first charged, the 77-year-old billionaire, who made his name in Manhattan as a real estate magnate, has insisted he is the victim of a witch hunt.
Meanwhile, prosecutors want jurors to be open-minded, able to follow the case and identify as Democrats.
Renato Stabile, a lawyer who provides jury advice, told DailyMail.com that both sides will likely get stuck with jurors they don’t want, but the goal is to avoid the “extremes.”
‘The judge has already said he will excuse anyone who says he cannot be fair. Essentially it opens the door to anyone who wants to leave,” he said.
‘The parties must ask themselves which people stay and why they stay.
“Many potential jurors will be dismissed because of what they have already heard and the feelings they already have about Donald Trump.”
He believes Trump’s team will look for people who are not interested in politics.
Their ideal candidates will be wealthier judges who can recognize his ability to handle their finances well.
“Young, wealthy, single, professional men, possibly in the financial world, with an active social life, who may view the underlying facts as a shakedown, and either have personal experience or know someone who does,” would be good prospects for the defense, he said. .
“Including people who have been mistreated by law enforcement or the criminal justice system and have a negative and skeptical view of prosecutors and the courts.
‘Or a mix of people who might disagree.
“The goal is likely a hung jury, as a full acquittal in Manhattan will be difficult.”
The jury will consist of people who live in Manhattan, speak English, are US citizens and have not been convicted of a crime. Both sides want New Yorkers who can both help and listen to their cause, but who are not biased and may have already jumped to conclusions.
The process of selecting a jury will be “difficult” given the extensive press coverage, Kovera said.
She also thinks that finding a completely impartial jury will be a difficult task due to the ‘complete saturation’ of prospective members.
“There’s no place they can go to avoid it. So what do you do then?
‘Well, it’s best to look for a location with a large number of people to call on.
“Your chances of finding 12 people who can be fair and impartial are better in Manhattan.
“If they want to move the case to another county in New York, you’re going to end up in smaller communities that will have fewer people on their jury.”
Trump has tried to switch locations to Staten Island, the only New York borough that voted overwhelmingly for him in 2020.
It was one of several legal steps that the judge rejected in the run-up to the case.
He believes he cannot get a fair trial because more than 70 percent of Manhattan residents register as Democrats.
“There is no perfect place, but this is more of a ‘when’ issue than a ‘where’ issue.” Stable said.
But he doesn’t think Trump’s claim that he can’t get a fair trial carries much weight.
‘The fairest thing might be to have the process take place after the November 2024 elections.
“If Trump loses the election, the outcome of this trial will have less far-reaching consequences and the danger from activist jurors will be smaller.
The potential jurors Trump’s legal team and Manhattan prosecutors will be looking for will be polar opposites
“If he wins, it will pose other problems, but we’ll end up there anyway with the other criminal cases, so postponing the trial until after the election would be a reasonable compromise.”
Now that the location of the trial has been finalized, lawyers will have to take into account concerns about the impartiality of jurors in court.
Lawyers will have to go through hundreds of candidates during the lengthy selection process and try to catch anyone who is lying.
“Lie detection is a very difficult proposition according to the research,” Kovera added.
‘People think they can do it quite well. So they actually rely on signals that are not indicative of deception.’
That means the pitch of a potential juror’s voice, inconsistencies in their story, or even fidgeting can be critical.
Kovera said if she had been advising the legal teams, she would have done a community survey to see what arguments would work with different types of people.
“The problem with biases is that they are very difficult to overcome,” Stabile said.
‘People tend to reverse engineer their decision-making to fit their worldview.
“They will view the evidence through the lens of their biases and in this case they will be very strong.”