Of the 1.4 million adults who live in Manhattan, it will be almost impossible to find one who doesn’t already have an opinion of Donald Trump.
But twelve of them will be chosen to ultimately decide his fate as the first former president to stand in a criminal trial that begins on Monday.
They will be picked from hundreds of eligible New York residents to sit for the historic case where Trump is accused of hiding a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about their alleged affair in 2006.
If found guilty by the group of his peers, he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison over a saga that started 18 years ago, and has seen wall-to-wall press coverage not just in the Big Apple but around the world.
Will it be impossible to find a dozen people who don’t already have prejudicial view of the presumptive Republican nominee for president? Experts who specialize in jury selection tell DailyMail.com it could be.
Jury selection in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan begins on Monday. The process to pick a panel of 12 to decide the former presidents fate could be painstaking
Selecting an impartial and non-partisan panel in a scandal with such enormous publicity – and in a city made up mostly of Democrats – is a monumental task for the court, and could last anywhere between five days and two weeks.
The jury will be made up of people who live in Manhattan, can speak English, are U.S. citizens and have not been convicted of a felony.
Both sides want New Yorkers who can both help and listen to their case, but who aren’t biased and may have already jumped to conclusions.
During the arduous process that starts Monday morning, the judge will ask each prospective member 42 questions aloud.
The topics range from their career and family life to what news networks they watch and whether they have been a member of a political organization.
Then there will be follow up questions, and the lawyers from each side will have a limited opportunity to challenge the jury pool.
Attorneys will have a chance to dismiss jurors and pepper them with questions before they allowed to sit on the trial that could last for up to six weeks.
Stormy Daniels with Donald Trump in 2006. She alleges they had an affair after meeting at a golf tournament
‘I think the biggest challenge is going to be for judges and the attorneys to ascertain who’s being deceptive and who’s not,’ Margaret Bull Kovera, a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told DailyMail.com.
‘This is the type of case in which people may lie to get on or off the jury.’
She said there is a possibility a juror could try and get selected driven purely by the chance to find Trump guilty or acquit him, without even hearing the evidence.
They also might see it as an opportunity to sell their story, despite the threat of anger from members of the public who don’t agree with the verdict.
‘The potential for prejudice is substantial,’ Cornell University Law Professor Valerie Hans told DailyMail.com.
‘Jurors may have already formed opinions about the case based on what they have heard from their favorite media; therefore it’s going to be important to discover what those opinions are, and whether or not they prevent people from being fair and impartial.’
The potential jurors Trump’s legal team and the Manhattan prosecutors will be looking for will be polar opposites.
Hans said Trump’s team will be looking for conservatives who have supported him in the past and believe the prosecution is politically motivated.
Since he was first indicted, the 77-year-old billionaire who made his name in Manhattan as a real estate mogul has maintained that he is the victim of a witch hunt.
Meanwhile, prosecutors will want jurors who are open-minded, can follow the case, and identify as Democrats.
Renato Stabile, an attorney who does jury consulting, told DailyMail.com it is likely that both sides will get stuck with jurors they don’t want, but the aim is to avoid the ‘extremes’.
‘The judge has already said that he will excuse anyone who says they can’t be fair. Essentially, opening the door for anyone who wants to leave,’ he said.
‘The parties have to be wondering about the people who stay and why they are staying.
‘Many potential jurors will be dismissed because of what they have already heard and the feelings they already have about Donald Trump.’
He believes that Trump’s team will be looking for people who aren’t interested in politics.
Their ideal candidates will be wealthier jurors, who can recognize he would be good with their finances.
‘Young, wealthy, single, professional men, possibly in finance with active social lives, who may view the underlying facts as a shakedown, and either have personal experience or know someone who has,’ would be good prospects for the defense, he said.
‘Also, people who have been mistreated by law enforcement or the criminal justice system and have a negative and skeptical view of prosecutors and courts.
‘Alternatively, a mix of people who might not be able to agree.
‘The goal is probably a hung jury, since a full acquittal will be difficult in Manhattan.’
The jury will be made up of people who live in Manhattan, can speak English, are U.S. citizens and have not been convicted of a felony. Both sides want New Yorkers who can both help and listen to their case, but who aren’t biased and may have already jumped to conclusions.
The process of selecting a jury will be ‘difficult’ given the extensive press coverage, Kovera said.
She also believes that finding a fully impartial jury will be a tough task because of the ‘full saturation’ of prospective members.
‘There’s no place they can go to avoid it. So then what do you do?
‘Well, the next best thing is to look for a venue that has a large number of people that they can call on.
‘Your chances of finding 12 people who can be fair and impartial are greater in Manhattan.
‘If they wanted to move the case to some other county in New York, you’re getting into smaller communities that are gonna have fewer people in their jury pool.’
Trump has tried to switch venues to Staten Island, the only New York borough that overwhelmingly voted for him in 2020.
It was one of the many legal moves rejected by the judge in the build-up to the case.
He believes he can’t get a fair trial because more than 70 percent of Manhattan residents register as Democrats.
‘There is no perfect place, but this is more of a “when” issue, than a “where” issue.’ Stabile said.
But he he doesn’t think Trump’s claim he can’t get a fair trial holds much weight.
‘The fairest thing might be to conduct the trial after the November 2024 election.
‘If Trump loses the election, the outcome of this trial has less far-reaching implications and the danger of activist jurors is less.
The potential jurors Trump’s legal team and the Manhattan prosecutors will be looking for will be polar opposites
‘If he wins, that presents different issues, but we will end up there anyway with the other criminal cases, so adjourning the trial until after the election would be a reasonable compromise.’
Now the location of the trial is set in stone, lawyers will have to navigate concerns about juror impartiality in court.
Attorneys will have to go through hundreds of candidates and try to detect anyone who is lying as they go through the lengthy selection process.
‘Lie detection is a very hard proposition according to the research,’ Kovera added.
‘People think they can do it pretty well. So they actually rely on cues that are not indicators of deception.’
That means the pitch of a potential juror’s voice, inconsistencies in their story or even fidgeting could be critical.
Kovera said if she had advised the legal teams, she would’ve done community survey work assess to see which arguments would work on different types of people.
‘The problem with biases is that they are very difficult to overcome,’ Stabile said.
‘People tend to reverse engineer their decision-making to match their world view.
‘They will view the evidence through the lens of their biases and in this case, those will be very strong.’