NEW YORK, United States: New York is home to eight million people, but only 12 people are chosen to judge the country’s most controversial figure, former president Donald Trump. And this is not a job that everyone wants.
Trump grew up in New York, where he made a name for himself and has been part of the city’s gritty landscape for decades. And of course, he’s also president and running again.
It will be a big challenge for the jury that will try Trump in the money fraud trial in Manhattan in the next few weeks.
Attorneys for both sides are screening a large number of potential participants to find New Yorkers who are impartial and physically able to participate in the legal marathon.
Kara McGee, a dismissed candidate, said her fellow contenders were “really kind of trying to put their own feelings aside and be impartial.”
She asked to be excused because her job in cybersecurity posed a scheduling conflict.
Jurors selected will remain anonymous to protect them from harassment. Inside the courtroom, McGee was known only as Juror B377.
The final panel will determine whether the 77-year-old White House candidate is guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up reports that he had an affair with a porn star in the run-up to his 2016 election victory.
“I couldn’t do it,” a woman confessed in the hallway as she left. “It’s probably hard for me to be fair,” a bald, bearded man said in court Tuesday morning. He was also fired.
