Tuesday, August 2, 2022

How Do You Pick a Jury to Prosecute Trump?

I would very much like to see Trump taken off the table.  Having him in federal prison would do nicely.  Not as nicely as if he would do us the favor of dying in an overtly non-suspicious way, but well enough.  So from a naive standpoint, throwing the book at him would be very handy.

But if the DoJ is going to prosecute Trump, it has to win.  Having him acquitted is considerably more catastrophic than declining to prosecute him in the first place.  So here's what I think is the key question:

How do you pick a jury?

I would assume that "how did you vote" is probably a no-no as a voir dire question.  Could you ask jurors if they're Republicans, Democrats, or independents?  Could you restrict the jury pool only to independents?

And even if you could, how would you be able to tell if you hadn't empaneled a hard-core MAGA Trumpkin who was nominally independent?  It only takes one for a hung jury--which is as bad as an acquittal, from a political and public policy standpoint.

It would be fine to screen thousands of jurors if you could find a genuinely impartial one.  But I have grave doubts that there is a (legally acceptable) set of screening questions you could ask to be certain of your screening.

That makes the risks of prosecution huge.  It may make prosecuting him at all a non-starter.

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