President Donald Trump and his allies have long argued that receiving a fair jury trial in deep blue Manhattan will be nearly impossible.
Those concerns are more than speculation, however.
As reported by the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman, Trump’s jurors mostly lean “left-of-center.”
The bombshell — but unsurprising — report only served as further evidence that Trump will not receive a fair shake by a jury in Manhattan.
The case could force Trump into even more legal hurdles in the inevitable appeals process.
The jurors’ political leanings are almost purely based on math.
As Breitbart notes, Manhattan is one of the most liberal districts in the country.
Manhattan is heavily blue, and President Joe Biden won the district with 86% support in the last election.
Haberman, who is also an analyst for CNN, admitted that there’s not much in the way of neutrality on Trump’s 12-person jury.
“One thing that’s been striking during this round of voir dire is there a lot of people who, based on their answers, are more left-of-center than not, politically,” Haberman wrote.
She added, “But some seem to be trying to show they can consider alternative viewpoints, and others seem to want to show they believe in the concept of jury service as independent from personal opinions.”
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley warns that one of the greatest threats to Trump’s legal future is stealth jurors.
“Only about 12 percent of the people in this area voted for Trump,” Turley told Fox News.
“The jurors you have to worry about are the ones who are sort of ‘Trojan horse jurors,’ who are hiding bias that doesn’t appear on social media or are involved in any formal charges like the one that was just removed today.”
Several jurors had already been dismissed by week’s end.
One of them cited identity concerns, and the other juror who was let go was released for unknown reasons.
Of course, 12 jurors will be seated for the trial, and there will be a total of five alternate jurors, for a total of 18.
So far, only one alternate has been chosen, and it was reported that jury selection should be finalized by early this week.
One can bet that Trump’s lawyers are watching the jurors like a hawk to make sure they’re as unbiased as possible.
Only time will tell if they miss anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment