Political analyst says a guilty verdict by citizen jury could hurt Trump's presidential candidacy

Record ID: 1819076

  • Title: Political analyst says a guilty verdict by citizen jury could hurt Trump's presidential candidacy
  • Date: 18th April 2024
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE)(English) POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, SAYING: "Well, I mean, my sense is, and I can also draw on my experience of jury duty in New York City that, you know, the courts are proceeding as they usually do, except they have a larger number of jurors that they're calling in for the voir dire because they, they know that a lot of jurors will be excluded by by the lawyers. And also a lot of jurors won't be able to do it because of scheduling and, and things, and things like that as well, or discomfort, discomfort doing it and the like. And and, you know, you know, the expectation was they'd have to go through a lot of jurors until they could find, you know, finalize the jury pool. And they seemed to be a proceeding as would normally occur in a trial in New York, except with the added complication of this particular case."
  • Embargoed: 2nd May 2024 22:41
  • Keywords: DONALD TRUMP TRUMP TRIAL
  • Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA002628818042024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Lawyers in Donald Trump's historic criminal trial on Thursday (Apriil 18) selected 12 jurors who will assess his guilt or innocence over the coming weeks in a case stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star.
    Lawyers for the defense and the prosecution still must select alternate jurors for the trial, the first ever in which a former U.S. president is the defendant.
    Earlier in the day, Merchan dismissed a juror who said she felt intimidated that some personal information was made public.
    The judge also excused another juror after prosecutors said he may not have disclosed prior brushes with the law.
    Political science professor and analyst Robert Y. Shapiro of Columbia University in New York City explained that process is going slower than a "normal case" because of the need to find fair jurors.
    "For the actual trial to get underway on Monday, they would have had, they would have to finalize a jury today." said Shapiro, who doesn't believe it will begin at the start of next week. "I suspect it's not likely because even if and also even if they pick a jury today, who knows what's going to happen over the weekend as some jurors get second thoughts about participating."
    Trump's outsized public presence created unique problems during the jury selection process, which started on Monday.
    Roughly half of the first 196 jurors screened in heavily Democratic Manhattan were dismissed after saying they could not assess the evidence impartially.
    "There's very little about these legal proceedings, short of Trump getting acquitted that would shift the balance of good news to bad news in favor of good news, things that will come out there, you know, during the trial. It's hard to believe how the, how these things will, you know, play out in a positive way toward Trump." Shapiro said.
    Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four cases and has said, without evidence, that they are part of a broad-ranging effort by allies of Democratic President Joe Biden to hobble his candidacy.
    (Production: Matt M. McKnight)
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