*UPDATE* Jury Seated in Trump Hush Money Case After Judge Excused Two Jurors
One juror admitted she couldn’t remain impartial. The second was arrested “for tearing down right-leaning political advertisements.”
*UPDATE* We have a jury:
A jury of 12 people was seated Thursday in former President Donald Trump’s history-making hush money trial, propelling the proceedings closer to opening statements and the start of weeks of dramatic testimony.
The court quickly turned to selecting alternate jurors, with the process on track to wrap up by the end of the week. Prosecutors could begin presenting their case early next week.
The jury of Manhattanites includes a sales professional, a software engineer, a security engineer, a teacher, a speech therapist, multiple lawyers, an investment banker and a retired wealth manager.
Previous reporting…
Former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial is in jeopardy after Judge Juan Merchan excused two jurors on Thursday.
The court swore in seven jurors on Tuesday.
Merchan excused Juror #2 after she said she could not remain impartial. She lives on the Upper East Side and works as a nurse:
“I definitely have concerns,” she said, noting that her family and friends questioned if she was serving on the jury. “I don’t think I can be fair.”
She also said she thought that “outside influence” would “interfere.”
The woman also noted that she did not want aspects of her identity to be reported.
Judge Juan Merchan excused her and warned the press about covering the trial.
Merchan cautioned the press, “You can write about anything on the record, but apply common sense when writing about jurors using physical descriptions and descriptors.”
He also told them not to write “about anything that can be observed with eyes to ‘ensure jurors remain safe.'”
Merchan pointed out that the trial “lost what would have been a good juror” due to fears “of being intimidated.”
Do you think the press will oblige?
Merchan then excused Juror #4 after a past arrest “for tearing down right-leaning political advertisements” came to light:
The man had been arrested in Westchester, N.Y., for tearing town political advertisements, according to a prosecutor from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
“I actually believe the propaganda that was being ripped down was political posters that were on the right — the political right,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said Thursday.
Steinglass said that after additional research, it also appeared that the juror’s wife had been previously accused of, or involved in a “corruption inquiry” that needed a “deferred prosecution agreement with the district attorney’s office.”
Now the trial only has five sworn in jurors. The court needs thirteen before the prosecutors or defense present their opening arguments.
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Comments
It seems they’re having a hard time making their stalinist show trial look even remotely fair.
They don’t care, obviously. However great the statutory, precedential and constitutional infirmities with this trial are, any appellate review and reversal (almost certainly) won’t happen until long after people vote this fall. If they can use this fallacious indictment, and likely conviction to move the vote of 10K to 20K low-info voters who might have been otherwise moved to simply vote against Biden, they see it as a victory…and they may not be wrong. It’s going to be another razor-thin election.
Or get those 10-20k to stay home.
Aside from their non-votes, their ballots can be used as the fraudsters see fit. After all, they won’t even notice.
Damn that non state controlled media. This should be a simple propaganda show trial with a guilty verdict.
Those darn Founding Fathers and that Constitution. How could they have been so brilliant and all under 35yrs old?
Actually, this could lead to the basis for a real bugger of a betting pool. Between today and the putative election day in November, on what date will it become publicly undeniable that the process is either rigged or cancelled?
Subotai Bahadur
Fairness is definitely not part of the program with this trial. If it were remotely fair, this case would never have been brought or summarily dismissed with sanctions for the Prosecutor.
Of course not, but they still have to try to produce the image of fairness.
Given that the judge called her a “good juror” after she basically said she has already decided to convict Trump I’d say they’ve taken off their masks and aren’t even bothering to try and look fair.
If there is any justice to be had, this judge, and this prosecutor, and everyone connected to it, will serve prison time for their blatant abuse of power and breaking their oaths of office.
Surprised they didn’t bring in the hildabeast (clinton) and the wookie (michelle) as jurors.
Michelle is up in Massachusetts. Her commute would be vicious for the trial.
You do realise it was the prosecution that found out details about the juror who had a conviction for testing down right wing posters. That doesn’t seem to support your position very well does it
That’s because even the prosecutors can recognize extreme TDS when they see it, and they FULLY recognize it will hurt their political persecution case.
Sure as hell would be nice if you learned basic grammar and punctuation, dingus.
Don’t they teach English in your British schools?
Nonsense.
I’m sure they were actually checking for any political “activism” at all, and would boot any prospective juror whose social media content show a pic of them wearing a Maga hat as well.
But leaving on the jury someone so tainted by their politics that they’ll commit vandalism or other crimes in support of it – and whose taint shows hostility to Trump as a given – in the hope that the defense doesn’t find out – would be like leaving a landmine in place in your own driveway. Perfect grounds for vacating a conviction.
2 out of 7 … that’s only a 29% failure rate on “already seated” jurors. That’s still batting .710!! … which would get you the Number One spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame! So, there!
“Judge” Merchan would be the greatest hitter of all time if this were baseball. Pretty impressive. How could anyone call that “unfair”?
More like 7 out of 200, that is like 3%
They’re going to need more than 13 jurors because of the absolute certainty that some of the seats are going to get vacated by either bail-outs, outside of the court statements, or other obvious signs of anti-Trump bias. My best guess would be five alternates, and that may not be enough. So we’ll have a Dem judge, Dem prosecutors, twenty Dem jury members, and one Republican on trial. Imagine if the parties were reversed. The Dems would scream bloody murder.
“The Dems would scream bloody murder”
No they wouldn’t there have been multiple trials where maga types were on the jury and to there credit they did just fine when they listened to the facts of the cases.
In NYC I bet TDS runs so hard that some of the jurors won’t be able to contain themselves and stay off social media looking for clout and clapter. Might be a mistrial from the get go
Serious question (from personal experience):
If you are on a jury and during deliberations another juror says something like, “I don’t trust police officers, I’m voting not guilty!!!” Or in this case, “I was hoping to have a chance to nail this guy! (Or “stop the railroad!”)…
What is a juror to do? Ask to talk to the judge?
In my experience it got worked out in spite of such a statement… required grace to let someone backtrack while saving face.
Thanks
I believe the standard is ‘showing good cause’ to excuse a juror who refuses or is unable to do their duty. Refusing to deliberate or refusing to deliberate in good faith (which is essentially what you describe above) can meet that standard. Personally, I’ve always been uncomfortable with this standard because it’s a mechanism that could potentially be used to eject a juror who’s not bowing to peer pressure.
I could easily see one hold out who refuses to vote to convict Trump based on either on a conclusion he/she formed either before or during the trial be excused because the other jurors tell the judge that person is ‘refusing to deliberate.’ How it actually works is real life is a matter for debate, with practicing lawyers claiming that it’s a real danger while others claiming it’s not a real issue at all.
Finding enough jurors with either bias or knowledge of Trump is like asking a Christian if they know of Jesus Christ and can remain impartial.
Trump will never get an impartial jury in NYC.
Trump decried to make his billions using NYC real estate laws to his benefit to become a billionaire. The rooster comes back to roost.
Trump made those billions through voluntary transactions with other people that they chose to do. There’s nothing illegal or immoral about that.
Fraudulent voluntary transactions in some cases, and in many cases using his wealth to commit lawfare against subbies who he screwed over on numerous occasions.
what on earth are you talking about?
@MarkS
Where have you been lol, hiding under a rock
MarkS, it’s an old anti-Trump trope.
Like any builder, he hires subcontractors.
And he and they sign (voluntary) contracts, with penalty clauses for substandard or late work.
Because he expects his subcontractors to actually do The Job and do it On Time he’s a Big Bad Meanie picking on The Little Guy.
Any builder, especially in NYC, who doesn’t enforce subcontractor contracts is essentially treated as a tourist waving money around in a Bad Neighborhood.
Trump was one of the main people who saved New York City in the 80s. All of the other developers were leaving, since New York had become such a dirty sh*thole, but Trump loved Manhattan and he was one of the only developers willing to build there. He was building the Trump Tower when almost no one else was building and it was a stunning success. It quickly made history being the first residential apartments in America to sell for more than $1,000/sq-ft. Trump went into overdrive buying and developing everything he possibly could. Everyone wanted to be in business with him and banks were falling all over themselves to lend him money and get in on his projects. The other developers saw what a killing he was making and they started coming back. And Manhattan, and New York City, took off
Trump was an excellent developer and was one of the people most integral to New York’s escape from the abyss. He was one of the main people who really saved New York City.
Of course, you know nothing about New York City in the 70s and 80s, much as you know nothing about anything.
The other guy who helped save NY was a chap called Rudi.
Absolutely. Rudy was a little bit later, but he was fearless as the federal attorney and he was the greatest mayor in New York City history. And they are trying to ruin him, too.
It’s unreal.
That progressives already ruined with their hate and division.
@ThePrimordialOrderedPair
Rudy ruined himself, FAFO
This is pretty fucking ignorant JR 😂😂 And demonstrates perfectly the problem with the left, their hatred of something trumps common sense and even worse, common decency.
“using NYC real estate laws to his benefit”
What a dirt-stupid criticism.
You don’t even claim he violated those laws, because he didn’t.
If he made his nut in accordance to those laws, more power to him.
This is a jury of the judge’s peers and not Trumps. The Left is always talking about racism at an unperceived level. Did they ever think to see that very problem in themselves with politics? The Left is a spectrum disorder as Michael Savage pointed out.
Any juror that admits to NYT and/or CNN is by definition biased
Saying “I can’t be impartial” is a very easy way of getting excused from jury duty.
Well that’s true, everybody had that opportunity at the very beginning before they filled out a questionnaire.
What a circus
>>She also said she thought that “outside influence” would “interfere.”<<
And if that is going to be a problem for this jury then the Judge should sequester the jury and alternates and they should be kept strictly incommunicado with the rest of the world for the duration of the trial.
But then the jurors wouldn’t be intimidated by tacit threats, perhaps even from Biden himself, as in the Derrick Chauvin trial. The Regime needs to ensure the “right verdict”, after all.
Which is exactly why the hack Democrat ‘judge’ tried to put a ridiculous gag order on Trump.
So he couldn’t demonstrate just how insane this crap is.
These weren’t just ‘prospective’ jurors. They had ALREADY BEEN SEATED.
This is a joke, and not a funny one.
how can there be multiple lawyers within a group of 12 people. No factory workers, no waitresses, no one in r, Doesn’t sound like a representative pool of registered voters.
To sum up, about 50% of prospective NY jurors admitted the were too biased to be fair and impartial, the other half blatantly lied and said they were able to put aside their conviction Tru,p was guilty of whatever Bragg and Merchan accuse him of…
Great, when do we get to see the indictment that has the actual elements of his supposed crime?
Like whom he tried to defraud, and of what. Or what other crime he intended to commit.
All that 6th amendment stuff that apparently doesn’t apply in NY
apparently the prosecutor does not have to identify the crime that caused the misdemeanor to become a felony
We don’t. Because there is none.
Soon Milhouse will be by to explain to us why this is all right and proper.
I think I saw a post of Milhouse’ on another news story where he said that it was obvious that the prosecutor must identify the crime, and therefore he is certain that the prosecutor has done so. While I agree with the former, I am not certain about the later in this world of justice.
Does anyone know where I can find the docket in state criminal case online? I have found the indictment and statement of fact here: https://manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-Indictment.pdf and here: https://manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-04-04-SOF.pdf
I also found the docket in Trump’s failed attempt to remove to federal court.
But I can’t find the docket in the state court matter so I can actually read the filings for myself.
I found this site for searching: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/Login
However, using the indictment number yields no results, and neither does searching for Trump by name. I suppose the criminal matter might have been assigned a new docket number on filing, but I would think the name search should still result in a hit, but I can’t find anything.
§175.05 – 10A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree
when, with intent to defraud, he:
Makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an
enterprise; or
when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit
another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
§200.50An indictment must contain:
7. A plain and concise factual statement in each count which, without allegations of an evidentiary nature,
(a) asserts facts supporting every element of the offense charged and the defendant’s or defendants’ commission thereof with sufficient precision to clearly apprise the defendant or defendants of the conduct which is the subject of the accusation; and
As far as I can tell, there are at least 3 elements:
1. false statement
2. intent to defraud
3. intent to commit or conceal another crime.
The indictment only addresses the false statement. How can this be legit?
It will be interesting to see what happens if there is a hung jury, or if Trump is found guilty but doesn’t get jail time. I figure, Antifa riots.
I know it’s the proper terminology and all, but he didn’t excuse them so much as fire them.