Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday halted the jury selection process for his historic criminal trial in New York, a day after the first seven jurors were selected from a pool of nearly 100 people.
Posting about the quiet trial on his scheduled day off, Trump — who has repeatedly accused the judge in the case of being biased against him — incorrectly suggested that he should be entitled to unlimited strikes of potential jurors in his criminal case.
“I thought STRIKES was supposed to be ‘unlimited’ when we were choosing our jury. I was then told we only had 10, not nearly enough when we were purposely given the second worst location in the country,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social, before condemning the criminal cases against him as “electoral interference” and part a “witch hunt”.
Under New York law, each side has an unlimited number of “for cause” strikes. but the judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, can decide whether or not this cause is worthy of a strike.
Both sides are also entitled to a limited number of “peremptory strikes” – potential jurors they can dismiss. Because Trump is charged with a Class E felony, which is a lower-level felony, he and prosecutors are entitled to 10 peremptory challenges each. (The number rises to 20 for defendants facing the highest level of criminal charge, Class A.)
Although the judge dismissed several potential jurors in the case who said they could not be impartial or had scheduling conflicts, he only dismissed two “for cause” in the two days since jury selection began. One was a person who wrote “lock him up” about Trump in a 2017 social media post. The judge denied a few other requests to dismiss for Trump’s “cause,” including a woman who posted on Facebook about celebrating his victory. of Joe Biden in the 2020 elections.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche then used one of his peremptory challenges to remove the woman.
By the end of the day Tuesday, both Trump and prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office had used six of their 10 challenges, meaning they only had four left for each of the remaining jurors.
Two potential jurors the prosecutor’s office used its strikes against were people who said they had read Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.”
Trump is required to attend the trial, which is expected to last up to eight weeks and take place every day of the week except Wednesdays and holidays. The rigorous trial schedule will limit his ability to participate in person at campaign events as part of his presidential bid – something the former president has repeatedly complained about. NBC News reported last month that Trump plans to leverage his legal issues for political gain by falsely blaming President Joe Biden.
Jury selection is scheduled to resume Thursday morning with an additional pool of 96 potential jurors. After a full 12-person jury is selected, both sides choose alternate jurors.
Merchan sounded hopeful Tuesday that jury selection will be done by the end of the day Friday. He told the seven selected jurors to return Monday morning for opening statements, while warning that the date could change.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a secret payment to a porn star during the final days of the 2016 presidential election. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted. .
Fallon Gallagher contributed.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
