It has been noted that in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, jury selection started in the historic criminal trial of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump. This marked the first such trial of an American president.
A significant number of the initial jury pool were quickly excused after the trial began. Over half of the first 96 prospective jurors were dismissed after expressing their doubts about their impartiality.
Alina Habba, Trump’s legal spokeswoman, voiced these concerns starkly in an interview with Benny Johnson. The conversation on Monday dove into the mechanics of jury selection and the critical issues at stake.
Johnson had set the tone early in the discussion, questioning the integrity of the upcoming jury pools by labeling them as “absolutely ratchet,” a sentiment that Habba echoed with concerns over potential bias.
Well, the conversation then took a reflective turn to past legal precedents, notably the O.J. Simpson case, to illustrate their worries about juror impartiality. Johnson remarked, “We’ve just been covering OJ’s death, and there were all these jurors…they’re saying, we knew he killed everyone.”
Habba refered to the specific restrictions placed by Judge Merchan during the jury selection process, which she argued could severely impact the defense’s ability to ensure a fair trial.
“One of the things that the judge here, Judge Merchan, would not allow us to ask was whether or not they voted for a Republican or a Democrat.
”Further exacerbating the issue, Habba revealed that individuals currently employed by the Biden campaign were allowed in the jury pool for the E. Jean Carroll case—a situation she found deeply problematic. “There’s people that when I was doing the jury selection in the Carroll case, were working currently for the Biden campaign. And I didn’t want those people sitting on a jury for President Trump.”
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1779925234868470134
