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Went through that on my one time as a juror. The defendant was charged with specific crimes. Kidnapping, rape and using a weapon. None of us liked the guy, but we also ended up not liking the “victim” or their star witness. Total mess. Our view was we could not convict as the prosecution mangled the charges and the actual trial. All parties should have been charged with something, domestic violence or such. But it was not a kidnapping, not rape and the star witness denied seeing a weapon as well.
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That’s exactly the way I felt about the OJ Simpson trial, and I would have voted the same way that jury did. I think I could be a fair juror in Donald Trump’s case, too, but I would never be picked (setting aside that I don’t even live in NY anyway) because I read the New Yorker, the New York Times, this web site, and I listen to NPR. Of course, I also read my local paper, which is pretty conservative (though less firmly so than it used to be, but probably only because they have pared down their editorial staff and their access to syndicated columns to the point that they almost don’t even have an OpEd page). But the Trump attorneys would still say I was “irredeemably biased”.
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What I want to see is the outcome of the contempt hearing next week. I want to see if Merchan has the iron in his spine to give Trump a blood and guts dressing down, and a promise of jail time if he so much as whispers something bad in his sleep. Personally, the thought of the Orange Asshole (and Draft Dodger) waiting in the chow line at Rikers is exciting enough to nearly make me swoon.
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Nope. Sacramento, California. And that service was only a portion of the times I was called but not empaneled. That’s over a period of nearly 40 years.
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Well, so what if the judge “threatens” and “promises”? Lots of judges have already done that, yet the Defendant sails on, unchastened and unpunished.
I want to see him behind bars, every evening, in a jumpsuit that matches his pancake makeup. He’s already earned it.
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Hail, fellow Californian!
Been driving north to the PNW for over 40 years. The changes in Downtown Sacramento and the Capitol Mall have been interesting. Some work, and some didn’t.
Miss Fat City in Old Sacramento.
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He’s playing to the Right’s persecution bias. The story he’s selling is that everything and everyone not totally with him is not just against him but actively out to destroy him. Because this is what the Right believes about themselves. He’s made himself the martyr of their inherent martyrdom.
If you look at his actions, he’s not running a political campaign. His efforts are lazy, and he’s playing his comparative inaction as the result of an effort to deprive him of liberty. He’s not trying to win by votes. He’s counting on winning by violent uprising.
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Your husband is a better man than most and speaking as a lawyer I applaud him for upholding the law. If the State doesn’t make its case beyond a reasonable doubt then the Defendant is innocent in the eyes of the law, even if the Defendant is actually guilty.
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He gets to make the rules, he always wins, and he never ever has to listen to anybody tell him “no” on anything. I think that should cover it.
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As do I. I live in the suburbs and don’t get downtown much any more. It’s a whole different place.
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Like all criminals, Trump thinks everyone — including jurors — are just like him: corrupt, dishonest, biased, and amoral.
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Trump can never imagine treating someone he likes fairly. It isn’t in him to treat people the way he wants to be treated. He always has to be the clear winner.
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I don’t know what Mary Trump, Trump’s niece, is saying. But I suspect she’s saying Trump is mightily afraid. Trump intuits a few things. One is that he will look really bad when shown to be paying a prostitute, not to mention paying off the prostitute for silence. All highly irregular, and illegal, not to mention having fudged his records to hide the payment. So, he’ll look bad to many of the religious folks out there, whether fundamentalists or not. I mean, at least a couple of the Ten Commandments are clearly violated here, no?
Also, Trump is worried about being shown to be someone who’s had to pay for women’s affections. Not so Clinton!, among others in that orbit. Can’t get it, so he has to pay for it. Not exactly a ladies’ man, now is he? Not a good look.
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Yeah, like he’s only got the one… 
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Attempted murder was the charge on the one trial I was chosen for. The prosecution so poorly laid out the crime scene for us-- then couldn’t explain where the gun appeared from or disappeared to-- that nine of us refused to convict. The three who were adamant of the defendant’s guilt-- couldn’t explain to us how they arrived at that conclusion with any reasoning than ‘he just is’. We were hung for a day, sequestered, then came back the following day to deliberate. We stayed hung through the morning, the judge broke for lunch. Lunch was more somber than the previous two days.
The judge didn’t arrive back in the courtroom until an hour later than expected. We had been deliberating during this time-- and ‘the three’ realized this could go on and on and finally gave in. When we told the judge we arrived at a verdict via a note-- he replied he’d give us an explanation for his tardiness after the verdict was read.
When the foreman pronounced ‘not guilty’-- the judge-- clearly steaming at the verdict-- pronounced the case closed, spun out of his chair into chambers. Before we were even out of the jury box-- I could see through the porthole windows in the courtroom doors-- the judge had thrown off his robe, and was nearly running from the building.
We never did get that explanation.
Fuckin’ jerk. Expecting to convict a possibly innocent man.
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His attorneys tried to use for-cause challenges to disqualify one juror on Tuesday and another on Thursday in part because their spouses had made statements critical of Trump.
We should apply this Trump lawyer logic to recuse Clarence Thomas from any J6 or Trump-related hearing, no?
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shovels
Great reporting, Josh!
In the same way that Trump often sought to paint the political system as either for him or against him, with no gray area, he’s tried to do the same in jury selection.
Trump divides everything.
Loyalty is meaningless unless it’s reciprocal. Trump has no loyalty. He divides, then divides again and again.
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I gave this a ‘Like’, but I’ll admit that it hurt. And of course, you’re correct that this is the way it should be, or we fall straight into the “Vigilantes for Justice!” rathole…
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I get it. I really do. It’s an ethical quandary. Plenty of people would disagree with me.
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