Soon, twelve New Yorkers will be tasked with a unique task in history.
They will consider whether to condemn Donald Trump, former president and current presumptive Republican Party candidate, creating a scenario in which a criminal could be elected to the White House.
All 12 must reach the same decision for each of the 34 charges Trump faces – otherwise the case ends in a mistrial.
What they will determine is anyone’s guess.
“Anyone who claims to know what a jury is going to do or how long it will take is either lying to you, lying to themselves or is much smarter than anyone I have ever met,” said Mitchell Epner, a former federal official from New York. York. prosecutor now at Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner LLP.
The case against Trump jurors will begin deliberations this week and centers not on Trump’s last run for president but on his 2016 campaign. He is accused of falsifying business records to hide a secret payment to a porn star weeks ago. before voters that year decided whether to elect him. They ended up handing him a stunning victory.
Prosecutors say Trump directed his allies to suppress bad press at all costs — the payment was made to prevent the story from becoming public — because just one more scandal could upend his presidential aspirations. But defense lawyers say Trump maintained a degree of separation from his allies working to propel him to the highest office in the land, unaware of any illegal schemes they engaged in to get him there.
After more than four weeks of testimony in Trump’s criminal trial from 22 witnesses who once made up his inner circle, the former president’s jury is expected to begin assessing his innocence this week after closing arguments conclude on Tuesday. .
Trump’s jury is a melting pot of Manhattanites — from a physical therapist to investment bankers and immigrants to longtime New Yorkers.
They were selected to hear Trump’s case over four days in April, a process complicated by his controversial political reputation, deep ties to New York City and intense media coverage.
Among the seven men and five women who make up the jury, the majority have university degrees and follow a multitude of media outlets. Notably, two jurors are lawyers.
While having lawyers on the panel may seem ideal in a case as complicated and high-stakes as Trump’s, it can prove to be a “double-edged sword,” said Jeremy Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor.
“You don’t want the lawyer, who may be educated and understand the law, to impose the use of the law or the reading of the law or the understanding of the law on the rest of the jury,” Saland said. “And even if it’s not intentional, you don’t want the jury to trust the lawyer to say, ‘Oh, okay, that’s what it means.’ Or, ‘Oh, thanks for explaining that area of law.’
“Even if it’s not intentional, you don’t want to give it too much weight; they are equally equal,” he continued. “This is not an Orwellian novel – you know, ‘all jurors are equal and some jurors are more equal than others.’”
Once the jury retires to deliberate, the lawyers serving among the 12 will have an equal chance of helping or hindering prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s case, said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University.
Prosecutors can expect lawyer-jurors to act as their “teaching assistants” inside the deliberation room, Levinson said, taking jurors through several complicated steps to determine whether to convict Trump of complicated campaign finance violations.
However, they could easily point to the numerous elements that jurors must unanimously agree on to find Trump guilty and suggest that if they don’t agree on just one, “the whole thing falls apart,” she said.
There are several looming questions that jurors must answer that could decide the success or failure of the case.
When the National Enquirer and its then-editor, David Pecker, buried negative stories about Trump and highlighted bad news about his 2016 opponents, were they acting in the interest of selling magazines or paving Trump’s path to the White House?
Was pornographic actress Stormy Daniels’ detailed testimony about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump unnecessary in a case of falsifying business records – or did it prove that Trump had something to hide from voters?
And perhaps most pertinent of all: is Michael Cohen credible?
As a former Trump agent who paid to keep Daniels quiet and coordinated other secret deals, Cohen was the district attorney’s star witness and the last to testify in his flagship case.
Before jurors met Cohen, they were warned by prosecutors that he had “some baggage.”
Numerous witnesses called Cohen an “idiot,” “an idiot,” and difficult to work with — to the point that some actively sought to avoid him. Trump’s former personal lawyer also pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance and other charges related to the conspiracy with which Trump is now accused.
Despite this, Cohen provided some of the most damning testimony heard against Trump’s jurors.
He confirmed that the 11 invoices he presented to Trump, which support 11 of the charges the former president faces, were false records. He said the $35,000 Trump paid him every month in 2017 was “minimal” work for his then-boss, undermining the defense’s arguments that those checks, from which 11 other Trump charges emerge, were a legal retention.
And he spoke about the larger electoral influence conspiracy that prosecutors intend to convince the jury, confirming that he paid Daniels $130,000 for his silence and coordinated two other deals – under Trump’s direction.
“There are things you just have to take Michael Cohen at his word for,” Epner said of the state’s case, although he noted extensive corroboration in many cases. “Most importantly, Michael Cohen is the only person – our only source of direct evidence – from whom Donald Trump heard the details of how this reimbursement scheme would work.
“And if Donald Trump didn’t hear that and didn’t agree with that, he’s not to blame,” he added.
Over three days of questioning, defense lawyers cast Cohen as a liar whose hush-money deals were a crooked operation that Trump had no knowledge of. He admitted under interrogation to stealing from the Trump Organization and posting repeated condemnations of his former client online, including while the trial was ongoing.
With Cohen’s credibility in dispute, the jury’s perception of his testimony is anyone’s guess — a risky position for prosecutors, whose case is significantly strengthened by the former fixer’s claims.
“A lot of this will fall directly and indirectly on the shoulders of Michael Cohen,” Saland said. “(The jurors) are going to have to say, ‘Well, you know what? I don’t like Michael Cohen. He is a conniving, lying, disreputable, selfish, revenge-driven little man. But at the same time, I can understand where he’s coming from.’”
But defense attorneys may have their own credibility issues that the jury must reckon with.
The star witness was Robert Costello, a lawyer who previously advised Cohen and served as a go-between for the Trump White House and its then-exiled go-between, who was under federal investigation at the time.
Although Costello refuted Cohen’s testimony that a “pressure campaign” was mounted against him, he groaned and complained about Judge Juan Merchan during his time on the stand – causing the judge to admonish Costello – and empty his courtroom.
Legal experts agreed that jurors trust the judge more than anyone else in the courtroom.
“The jury is looking to the judge for keys and clues about what is credible and what is problematic,” Levinson said. “And when they see a witness having some kind of adult tantrum and then the judge clears the room — that’s a really important message for them.”
Once the jury receives the case, it can render a verdict at any time.
If the jury finds Trump guilty, he will become the first US president convicted of a crime – and the first criminal with the alleged nomination of a major political party. If they acquit him, he will have managed to get one more way around the law.
Saland said it would be “naive” to think the magnitude of the jury’s historic decision won’t impact the deliberations.
“Whether or not you think it is a foolish accusation, a meritless accusation or a political accusation – or that it is born of absolute justice and a necessary accusation – doesn’t matter,” he said. “Because if you’re sitting in that jury room, no matter what you do or say, no matter what your outcome is, it’s going to have a ripple effect of a magnitude potentially that we can’t really contemplate right now.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
