After two days of questions, the judge Juan Merchan This Tuesday, he selected seven people to be part of the jury in the criminal trial against Donald Trump, the first in the history of the United States to a former president.
Jury selection will continue until a 12-person panel has been selected and six substitutes, but more than a third of the final “team” has already been obtained.
The candidates had to answer a long list of 42 questions, a process that lasted between five and seven minutes per person.
Many questions were simple: what do you do? Who is your current employer? What do you like to do in your free time? Do you have any interests or hobbies? What media do you visit, read or watch? ?.
Others, specific to Trump: “Have you ever attended a Trump rally? Are you or have you ever subscribed to any newsletter or email list managed by Trump or his organization? Do you follow Trump on any social network or have you done it in the past?”
They were also asked if they had read books written by Trump or by Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and right-hand man, who is expected to be one of the prosecution's star witnesses.
The candidates to join it, anonymous citizens chosen by lottery, They also had to answer questions such as where they live, if they take medications that can affect their concentration or if they feel capable of fairly judging a highly mediatized and politicized case.
This Monday, more than half of the potential jurors from the first batch of 96 people interviewed – there are about 200 candidates in total per day – They were excused after saying that they could not be fair.
And this Tuesday, in the question round of the questionnaire, several potential jurors said that, after thinking about it, they realized that they could not be impartial either and asked to withdraw.
“It's probably going to be difficult for me to be impartial,” a man with thinning hair and a beard told the court Tuesday morning, citing the “unconscious bias” he might acquire working as an accountant, a field in which he said many of his colleagues “They lean Republican.”
Other reasons why some candidates were excluded were personal, such as a wedding, or work, for the possible repercussions of taking time off to attend a trial that could last six to eight weeks.
Once you have passed the first round of questions, The remaining potential jurors were subjected to further questioning by defense and prosecution attorneys, that they have ten opportunities to dismiss jurors without the need for explanations.
That process was repeated twice, and elimination opportunities were used by both sides: Trump's legal team vetoed six potential jurors and the Prosecutor's Office vetoed another six.
Trump grew up in New York, became famous there and has been part of the city's landscape for decades. And, of course, he has also been president and is running again in the November elections to return to the White House.
In the Big Apple It is difficult not to have an opinion about the Republican, or about the multiple criminal charges against him.
So it will be an enormous challenge for the jury that is selected to spend the next few weeks judging Trump for allegedly having paid to buy the silence of a former porn actress with whom he had a relationship almost 20 years ago.
The judge said at the end of the day that he is “hopeful” that on Thursday and Friday – there is no session on Wednesdays – the rest of the jurors will be selected and everything will be ready to “begin Monday (April 22) morning” with an unprecedented criminal trial.
If everything progresses as it has so far in the Manhattan Supreme Court, opening arguments are expected to be presented on Monday.
The selected jurors will remain anonymous and will respond by number to be protected from possible harassment.
The final selectees must unanimously decide whether the 77-year-old White House candidate is guilty of 34 felonies for falsifying business records.
With this falsification, Trump would have tried to hide, on the eve of his 2016 electoral victory, that he had an extramarital relationship with the porn film actress.
If found guilty, Trump, Republican candidate for the November 5 elections, can be sentenced to four years in prison. If the jury does not reach a unanimous verdict, the case would be thrown out.
During the second day, the judge in the historic trial facing the former president also warned him that he will not tolerate “intimidation” in the courtroom.
“I will not allow any member of the jury in this room to be intimidated,” said judge of Colombian origin Juan Merchan bluntly, when a candidate was forced to give explanations for a video posted on Facebook that prompted a comment from the tycoon.
EFE and AFP
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