Half of would-be Trump jurors said they can’t be impartial. What does it mean?
Trump soon promoted the Fox News commentary of former Justice Department official and Trump administration appointee John Yoo, who called it “pretty extraordinary” that “half of the jury pool already says they’re so biased against President Trump that they can’t serve on the jury.” Trump allies on social media promoted the clip and extensively echoed the talking point. The idea is that Trump can’t get a fair trial in a locale where just 12 percent of voters supported him in 2020, and this laid that fact bare.
That is not precisely what the jurors said, though. And while the situation is certainly extraordinary, it wasn’t necessarily so for that reason.
Contrary to Yoo’s claim and some characterizations, jurors weren’t dismissed because they said they were biased against Trump. The question was broadly about whether they could be fair and impartial in the case, which could logically include being biased in Trump’s favor or other factors. Merchan laid out extensive criteria for a fair juror, saying one must also not harbor prejudices toward potential witnesses or prejudge the facts of the case.
Given the makeup of Manhattan, it’s perhaps fair to assume that a large number of those who raised their hands meant they were biased against Trump, but we can’t say that with certainty.
The question from there is how surprising and instructive this is.
Some experts on the jury selection process say it’s not too surprising. But they also note that it’s difficult to say, because it’s so unusual to begin a trial this way. While jurors are often asked if they can be fair and impartial, a “no” answer doesn’t generally lead to their immediate dismissal.
“It’s very common to ask potential jurors if they think they could be fair,” said Thomas Frampton, an expert on jury selection at the University of Virginia School of Law. “Though in an ordinary trial, there would be significant follow-up questioning by the judge or the parties (depending on the jurisdiction) to interrogate whether the juror is truly biased, whether they can put aside their preconceptions, and whether they would ultimately follow instructions.”
Nancy S. Marder, the director of the Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Justice John Paul Stevens Jury Center, noted that such a question can provide jurors with an opt-out if they decided they didn’t want to serve on the case for other reasons.
“In some cases it could be that some prospective jurors do not want to sit on a six-week jury trial that will be in the public eye,” Marder said. “One anthropologist who had been called for jury duty in a high-profile case in New York once described what he saw as a ‘culture of excuses.’ ”
Jury-bias expert Gregory Cusimano said Merchan’s chosen process provides “an easy way to avoid service.”
Of the jurors dismissed for claiming bias, more than two dozen appeared to be White women, 14 appeared to be White men, one appeared to be a Hispanic woman, four women appeared to be of Asian descent, and one man appeared to be of Asian descent.
Atlanta defense lawyer Chris Timmons noted that the situation here is also unusual because of how divisive Trump is. But he said that “dismissing the jurors for cause without allowing the attorneys to attempt to rehabilitate them should actually speed the selection process,” which involves hundreds of prospective jurors and could take weeks.
Which brings us to a related point: What does it say about the Manhattan jury pool specifically that half would claim an inability to be fair and impartial?
It’s perhaps less surprising when you look at a national YouGov poll released Monday. The survey found that 57 percent of Americans said they could be impartial jurors in the case; but the other 43 percent said that they would not be (19 percent) or that they weren’t sure (24 percent).
Passions about Trump also run high across the country. Polling has shown as much as three-quarters of the country has either “strongly favorable” or “strongly unfavorable” views about Trump.
This is also a case that has already garnered extensive media coverage. As many as half of Americans have already wagered either that Trump broke the law or that he did “nothing wrong.” Just 19 percent told AP-NORC pollsters last week that they didn’t know enough to offer a judgment. If a juror has already come to a conclusion like that, regardless of feelings toward Trump personally, that can also affect their ability to serve impartially.
And that gets at the flip side of Trump and his allies’ complaints. While this could be read as a sign that the jury pool broadly might have lots of biases, the people who raised their hands claiming bias were also quickly excluded from serving as jurors.
“They might have such strong feelings because the defendant is in the public eye,” Marder said. “Or, it might be that New Yorkers are not afraid to express their strongly held views. But in either case, this is exactly what should happen.”
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