It looks like Donald Trump may finally be subject to a criminal trial. It’s not the most important case – that one’s been delayed while the Supreme Court decides if Trump is above the law because he was President. The coming trial is about so-called “hush money” paid to a prostitute to keep her quiet during the last Presidential campaign.
I have two questions: First, will the trial, whatever its outcome, influence anyone’s vote?
Second, what are the chances Trump will be found guilty given that it takes only one juror to declare him innocent?
To the first question, I don’t think many people who are intending to vote for Trump give a hoot about this trial or its outcome. Trumpers certainly don’t. Perhaps there are a few ‘on-the-fencers’ who would be swayed off the fence in favor of Biden. Perhaps, but everybody already knows the kind of person Trump is, and has known for some time. People don’t care about character; they think he can manage the economy better, and the border, and crime. One young new voter told me Trump seems “more like a President” than Biden. So what that Trump paid a prostitute.
And remember, for every person who will think less of Trump if he is convicted of hush money, there are two or three who will have sympathy for him because they think he’s being unfairly prosecuted.
The second question is more interesting. To convict a person in a Federal criminal trial, the verdict must be unanimous. 12 to 0. That is, it only takes one to declare him innocent of the charges. One. Of twelve. Can you imagine how Trump will gloat if that happens, if just one Trumper gets through the process intended to sort out Trumpers?
More importantly, just imagine the effort that has been and is going on to make that happen? Don’t be naïve, there is a giant effort to beat the system designed to keep Trumpers off the jury.
It’s not an easy task, but it is surely being attempted.
Jury Selection. The jury selection process begins with selection of a jury pool, a fairly large number of potential jurors usually pre-selected randomly from voting lists. There is not too much the jury-fixers can do about this, short of hacking into the Court’s computers and messing with the algorithms that do the random selecting. I wonder how hard that is to do?
Without getting caught?
Statistics are at work here. If the population being drawn from is, say, 30% Trumpers, then it is very likely the jury pool selected will be about 30% Trumpers. Or if the pretrial publicity is favorable to one side, then the jury pool will be more favorable to that side.
But after the pool is randomly selected, the rest of the selection process is a screening; it is not random.
In most cases, the jury pool will be given questions to answer from the judge. There are 42 questions in the ‘hush money’ case. The judge tries to ask questions that will cause the prospective juror to commit to being truthful, fair and impartial, or to reveal his or her true, perhaps secret, feelings about the case or defendant. Lawyers for both sides listen intently in hopes of detecting something that will give away prejudice, a point of view, or anything they can use to eliminate a juror they are worried about.
The process is called voir dire, which literally means to speak the truth.
Prospective jurors are put under oath when they are subjected to a voir dire examination, so any prospective juror who lies could be prosecuted for perjury — a five-year felony in federal court. However, few are actually punished for lying. Most lies are told, not to get on a jury for some political end, like to declare Trump innocent, but to get out of jury duty. (Example: “I have to babysit my grandma, who is very sick”. Or, “I believe the guy is obviously guilty.”)
Trump’s lawyers objected to the question — “Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen?” and it is not on questionnaire for ‘hush money” jurors. It should be, of course. This is an example of the Court catering to Trump.
Lying in answering questions from the judge or lawyers is a potentially serious offense, definitely not recommended. And dangerous. Still, it is usually not seriously punished because the judge and trial lawyers want to get on with the trial, not take time messing around with schemers.
After the judge has screened, lawyers can dismiss a certain number of potential jurors “for cause” or just preemptively. “For cause” challenges can be granted or denied by the judge. Peremptory strikes can be used to remove qualified jurors for any reason at all, but they are limited in number to ten for each side.
The process of jury selection is tough for a would-be dishonest person to beat. Judges and lawyers are alert for cheaters, and sensitive to signs of dishonesty. Still, it is not 100% foolproof. Will a clever Trumper defeat the system and get Trump off? Who knows? It takes only one.
Just Sayin’
John R. Dixon 