Task one in Trump Organization trial: Picking a neutral jury
Trial of billionaire Donald Trump’s business is expected to last up to two weeks because the case is expected to take a week or two longer to complete, and the jury pool will be whittled down to about 90-100 people.
One of the first jury issues Trump and his lawyers will need to deal with is how to determine the jury. That’s because they believe the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is trying to prove that Trump directed him to commit a scheme to defraud his business and defraud the United States.
Cohen has testified that Trump ordered him to commit an elaborate fraud, and Trump has denied those allegations. The jury will be sequestered from the public and will hear testimony on several dates. Cohen is expected to be the star witness for the government, and he’ll face an intense cross-examination.
One of the initial questions is: Who will be on the jury, and can they be fair-minded citizens? The question of who will be on the jury has long been a topic of contention. A number of people have been suggested, and each has their own personal reasons why they should be on the jury. One of the questions is: Can the jury be selected from a pool of “good, solid citizens.”
So who will be on the jury?
One option is a pool of Trump supporters. We know that Trump is politically unpopular here in Houston, and that some of his supporters feel he is being falsely accused. In fact, many of Trump’s supporters on social media have been going on about how this case is politically motivated and aimed at sowing discord and division. However, Trump voters are hardly a monolithic group. Trump voters may be a little more divided than some on the left who are calling supporters “deplorables,” and who have blasted his supporters for being a “basket of deplorables.”
The reality is, however, that we shouldn’t be so quick to give up on the idea that a fair trial should be
