The location of the first lawsuit was carefully chosen in Manhattan, perhaps the most Trump-hating district in the country, but the rule that "no one of the 12 jurors can be acquitted before he can be convicted" is in Trump's favor.
▲This screenshot of the video from April 15 shows former U.S. President Trump arriving at a criminal court in Manhattan, New York. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
Text | Pottery short room
According to Xinhua News Agency, at about 10 a.m. local time on April 15, former U.S. President Trump appeared in the dock of a criminal court in Manhattan, New York, for the "hush money" case, thus becoming the first former president in U.S. history to be tried criminally.
Trump's fate will be decided by a jury of 12 New Yorkers. But two days into the trial, the jurors were in a difficult birth. It is understood that the selection of jurors may last up to a week.
Key roles are not yet in place
According to a report by CBS quoted by the overseas network, on April 16, local time, the trial of former US President Trump's "hush money" case entered the second day, and seven jury members were selected.
During the selection process, the anonymous members of the jury were identified only by alphanumeric "code names", and the seven members currently finalized include four men and three women, ranging in age from young to middle-aged, and whose occupations include salesmen, nurses, IT consultants, teachers, software engineers and two lawyers. Before being selected for the jury, they all answered questions about their backgrounds and their views of Mr. Trump.
These include a female oncology nurse who likes to walk her dog in the park, who once said when questioned in court by Mr. Trump's lawyers that she has "no preconceptions" about Mr. Trump, but that "no one is above the law," and a corporate lawyer who said he barely reads any news reports.
Due to the court's prior stipulation that no personal information of jurors be released, all media and self-media did not disclose the names of the selected candidates, but some of the unsuccessful candidates voluntarily released their personal information.
The problem is that, according to the rules, 12 jurors and six substitute jurors are needed for this trial. In the U.S. justice system, once a collegial panel decides to introduce a jury verdict, the latter will be responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not, and if found guilty, the sentencing will be decided by the judge.
Therefore, although jurors are "concurrents", they play a key role in the American justice system in holding the power of "guilt and innocence".
Trump has been charged with multiple criminal charges. In one case, the first of a formal trial on April 15, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office charged Mr. Trump with authorizing his former lawyer, Mr. Cohen, to pay tens of thousands of dollars in "hush money" to star Ms. Daniels in exchange for the latter's denial of having sexual contact with her.
According to Xinhua news agency, the trial focused not on whether Trump had an extramarital affair with the actress involved, but on whether he paid "hush money" to the actress by falsifying the company's business records.
The first round of the trial is expected to last six to eight weeks, and if the jury is delayed, it will seriously delay the trial process because there is no one to decide whether Trump is guilty or not.
Nearly two-thirds of them were eliminated in the first hurdle
After the first day of trial, 96 jury candidates arrived for the selection. But when faced with the first question, "can they perform their duties without any bias", 60 out of 96 people said they could not do it, which led to the elimination of nearly two-thirds of the candidates.
Witnesses said one of the male candidates left the scene muttering to onlookers, "I just can't do it." Others later said that the children's wedding conflicted with the time of the trial, prompting the judge to "graciously" exempt them from jury duty, and others withdrew because of the flu. In all, there are only 34 people left after one question.
The remaining 34 were then questioned in writing about their news reading habits, whether they had attended rallies organized by Trump supporters, and whether they had read books written by Trump. As a result, as many as 16 people were directly scared away or ran away, and only 18 people completed the roll.
The 18 were then cross-examined orally by the judge and the prosecution and defence, and any dissatisfaction could lead to their dismissal. Two of the candidates later said they had been banned by Trump's lawyers because they believed they "may have biases against Trump."
However, although the other candidate was rejected by Trump's lawyer on the grounds that "his spouse had posted against Trump", he was ultimately selected at the judge's insistence. Because "that bad post was 8 years ago", this sparked protests from Trump's team.
"Does the fact that Trump is a former president and a current candidate interfere with your ability to be a fair and impartial juror?" one woman was rejected for answering "yes" when asked the question, and another was dismissed for having posted online "arrest Trump."
Of course, it's not just candidates who oppose Trump who are out. A man who said he had moved from Texas said that "it is difficult to be impartial because of a crush on Trump," and another candidate, who likes Broadway stage plays and said he works in a bookstore, said, "I don't need to tell you what I think of Trump because it doesn't matter to the trial," and both were removed by the judge.
Initially, it was reported that 9 people were selected on the first day, but later it was reported that only 3 people were confirmed, and the next day some candidates said that "much more". The latest news shows that seven jury members were elected. At this rate, it will take about a week to meet the legal requirement of 12+6 people.
▲In New York, supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump held a rally in the park in front of the courtroom. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
The purpose of both sides is not pure
The reason for dystocia is that both parties have not had a simple purpose.
The reason why the prosecution and the Democratic Party want to launch a criminal case before the election is to stop Trump, who is gaining momentum, and ensure that Biden can be re-elected. It would be best if he could be convicted outright and prevent him from running, but the next best thing would be to disrupt Trump's election process with a lengthy trial.
That's why the location of the first lawsuit was carefully chosen in Manhattan, perhaps the worst Trump-hating district in the country, with a 9:1 ratio of Democratic supporters to Republican supporters.
Because of this, the defense's attempt to change the venue of the trial to the suburbs of New York was rejected by the court on the grounds that "it is where Trump lives." If there is a local court in the United States that will find Trump guilty on the eve of the election, it will definitely be here.
Of course, it is very difficult to convict. The rules of the court stipulate that only 12 jurors who have not chosen "not guilty" can be found guilty. Therefore, the purpose of "disrupting the electoral process" seems to be all the more important.
The trial will be held four days a week for six to eight weeks, which is enough to exhaust Trump and his team. And don't forget, this is just the first criminal case. That's why a tired Trump can't help but complain, "I should run in Pennsylvania, Florida or some other state right now."
There are also a lot of "small moves" on Trump's side. Speaking publicly about Judge Melcan and relatives of Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, the court issued a gag order prohibiting Trump from publicly commenting on witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors. Later, as Trump continued to comment on Melcan and Bragg's relatives, the gag was expanded.
In response, Trump's legal team filed a judicial challenge against the gag order in the Court of Appeals. Last week, Trump posted three times in a row on his social platform "The Truth", naming and reprimanding two key witnesses, Cohen and Daniels, and was ordered by prosecutor Conroy to delete them. This was contested by Trump's legal team, and its supporters continued their Trump-style attacks.
As soon as the trial began, on the first day of the trial, the judge accused Trump and his lawyer Blanche of "muttering, intimidating, and behaving inappropriately toward jury candidates," while Trump behaved exaggeratedly and yawned, which was questioned by critics as "a miserable sale." The trial lasted several hours, and he answered only three identical "yeses."
Obviously, Trump and his team did not intend to treat this trial as a simple judicial process at all, but hoped to "turn bad things into good things" as much as possible, and reap the gains from the election campaign lost in various places due to the trial, and through the operation of "turning the defendant's bench into a support platform", they will be able to reap the cost and profits.
"It's a trial, not a poll"
West Point law professor Bakken, a former prosecutor and lawyer, noted that in such a politically and camp-based trial, "faith is often more important than the facts." "The irony is that the Trump team must find jurors with mental strength who can effectively restrain their personal political likes and dislikes," he said.
Cohen, one of the key witnesses and a senior lawyer himself, pointed out that politics is not the only factor in jury selection, and that the prosecution and defense often pay special attention to weighing the personal characteristics of candidates, "The prosecution usually gives preference to people who dare to make difficult decisions on their own in their professional or personal lives, while the defense gives preference to people who have independent thinking and can refuse to conform to the herd."
Since, as mentioned earlier, the Manhattan "aura" is not in Trump's favor, but the jury rule that "no one of the 12 jurors can be found not guilty in order to be convicted" is in Trump's favor.
Therefore, the trial is likely to fall into a rotten battle of "no one seeks to win all, but to maximize the benefits": the prosecution is trying to prolong and complicate the process in order to maximize Trump's campaign energy, while Trump's side is trying to "conspiracy theories" and "bitter dramatization" of the trial in order to win the election effect that is difficult to obtain from ordinary campaigns.
Perhaps anticipating the intentions of both sides, earlier on April 16 local time, Manhattan District Attorney Assistant Steinglass told the second batch of jury candidates that the ongoing "trial is about the rule of law and whether Trump has violated the law and committed crimes, not a poll or referendum on Trump's presidency", reminding candidates that "participating in jury work has nothing to do with whether you like Trump as a person or not."
Written by Tao Short Room (Columnist)
Editor / Bruce Ma
Proofreading / Liu Jun
"Mathematics can be king", so that more talents can stand out Beijing News editorial
The Beijing News commented that readers and friends are welcome to contribute. Submission email: [email protected] topic must be the news reported by the institutional media on the day. Manuscripts will be published on a merit-based basis and will be paid. Please write the title of the article in the subject line of the email, and attach the author's signature, identity and occupation, ID number, phone number, and bank account (including account name, bank branch name) and other information at the end of the article in accordance with our publication specifications.