- By Kayla Epstein, Madeline Halpert, Nada Tawfik
- BBC News, reporting from court
The 40-year-old New Yorker didn’t expect to face Donald Trump when he began his jury duty this week.
But he was among the first of 96 potential jurors in the former U.S. president’s historic criminal trial.
He answered the first few screening questions with breeziness: what he did for a living (economics), what he did in his free time (golf), and which podcasts he enjoyed (Barstool Sports).
But the biggest question of all stopped him. “Can you judge the defendant fairly?”
He said he spent a lot of time with Republicans and grew up in Texas, which leans conservatively.
He told the court he felt he may have “unconscious bias”.
Being impartial may be difficult, he told Judge Juan Melchan, who promptly removed him from office.
Speaking to the BBC outside court, the man, who asked not to be named to protect his privacy, said he felt it would be “difficult” to find an impartial jury in New York.
“I want people to have faith that they can be fair,” he said. “But I think it’s going to be tough in New York State.”
Still, they have to find an impartial jury.
By Tuesday afternoon, the court had succeeded in selecting seven jurors it believed were suitable for the job, including the jury foreman, who is from Ireland and works as a sales professional.
Other jurors selected include two attorneys, an English teacher, a software engineer, and an oncology nurse.
But it could take several more days to fill the vacancies of 12 jurors and up to six alternates.
The difficulty of the job became clear as the selection process began on Monday.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies of falsifying business records.
Up to 12 members of the public will decide whether he is innocent, guilty or unable to agree.
Even prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers acknowledged in court that it would be nearly impossible to find an American, much less a New Yorker, who doesn’t have an opinion about Trump. The court may review hundreds of reports in order to make the correct decision.
On the first day of the trial, the first group of potential jurors was quickly cut in half when dozens of people raised their hands to say they could not be impartial to Trump.
The remaining prospects were typical New Yorkers.
A lawyer from the Chelsea area. A venture capitalist from Midtown. A man who owned a bookstore on the Upper West Side and listened to NPR while taking a shower. Creative director. Locksmith. He is originally from Puerto Rico and currently lives on the Lower East Side. Almost everyone reads the New York Times.
In the courtroom, he displayed variations on the classic New York accent as he began answering a 42-question jury questionnaire. Some of them were shocked, mainly because of the fairness-related answers.
A white-haired man with black-rimmed glasses from lower Manhattan said he had read two of Mr. Trump’s books, “The Art of the Deal” and “How to Get Rich.”
He said he had read another book by Trump but couldn’t remember the title, drawing a laugh from the former president who was shuffling papers in his defense room.
The potential juror said some of his wife’s family members were Republican lobbyists, but told the court, “Nothing will prevent me from being a fair and impartial juror.”
But he also said it would be difficult not to discuss the matter with his wife.
Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead lawyer, took turns scrutinizing 18 people who were handpicked to remove bias.
At one point, a woman with a saucy accent told the court that she could trust that her media access would not influence her opinion of the case because she had spent the month of February in a holiday home with no Wi-Fi. .
One of the potential jurors, a man from Harlem, was asked by Mr. Blanche if he understood the risks of the trial, and summed up by saying, “People’s lives are at stake. The country is at stake. This is serious.” did.
When Blanche repeatedly pressed another man to tell him his true opinion about Trump, the man casually replied, “I would be happy to tell you if I were sitting at a bar.”
But he insisted he would put any personal feelings aside in court.
Not satisfied, Trump’s lawyers combed through the jurors’ media for evidence of bias.
Several jurors experienced a chronic internet user’s worst nightmare. It was about having your old social media musings read out in court.
One juror was rejected over a post that read, “Lock him up.”
One post declared that the superhero group The Avengers was teaming up against Donald Trump, while another expressed lewd thoughts about outspoken liberal actor Mark Ruffalo.
Some made offensive racial jokes, comparing Trump to former President Barack Obama.
The long cycle of questioning and screening continues until all jurors are acquitted.
By mid-afternoon Tuesday, Judge Marchan had summoned 96 more people and ordered them to submit to microscopic examinations in turn.
“I don’t think this is surprising at all,” said Diana Florence, a former Manhattan prosecutor.
“In cases that receive media attention and one of the parties is well-known, the ability to put aside preconceived notions about the person or the case is always at stake.”
“Given that the defendant is Donald Trump, a former president who is running for president and has been in the headlines for nearly half a century, it is entirely to be expected that there would be a large number of people who are not impartial. That’s what happened,” she said.
Throughout the process, many New Yorkers pledged to take jury duty seriously.
“Especially in this courtroom, he is treated like anyone else and no one is above the law,” said the oncology nurse who was selected to serve on the panel.
But outside the courtroom, the excused 40-year-old juror from Texas felt it would be irresponsible to take that chance.
“How can we be fair?” he said. “It’s so hard to look at yourself in the mirror and have an honest conversation.”