Each potential juror, drawn at random from a public list of residents, will have to answer orally seven pages of questions ranging from profession to political orientation, the result of an agreement between the prosecution and defense lawyers.
Among them : “Do you follow an account from an anti-Trump organization or group on social media, or have you followed one in the past? “. In the questionnaire, they are also asked if they have an opinion on the way Donald Trump is treated in the affair, or if they support far-right groups like the conspiracy nebula QAnon or the organization that advocates white supremacism Proud Boys.
Their verdict must be unanimous, hence the importance of each of them.
The prosecutors prosecuting Donald Trump, like the lawyers defending the septuagenarian, will seek to know at all costs which side the jurors lean politically, knowing that New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly for Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, respectively in 2016 and 2020. Although born in New York and having built his real estate empire there, Donald Trump remains a controversial figure, to say the least, in the megalopolis.
“Manhattan has a long history with Donald Trumprecalls Leslie Ellis, a lawyer and psychologist expert in juries. Not only because of his presidency and the time after his presidency, but also because of his experience in real estate and business in New York before.” This is particularly why the former president’s lawyers tried, in vain, to delay the trial. According to them, the jurors in New York would have been exposed to “huge biased and unfair media coverage“. Some of the questions relate to the way in which they obtain information.