Judge Juan Merchan issued his final jury selection instructions and questionnaire for the scores of New Yorkers who will be considered for the final panel to determine Donald Trump’s fate in his Manhattan election tampering case, and it’s bad news if you’re a member of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers or Q-Anon.
In a procedural issue, Merchan ruled that the court will dispense of the lengthy practice of interviewing people who have self-identified as unable to serve on the jury because of conflicts or other causes. Noting that during the 2022 Trump Organization trial he presided over, the jury selection process was drawn out by the mandated interviews–a process Merchan notes would be more complicated in a criminal trial.
“This Court finds, after careful consideration of the circumstances of this case, that requiring individual inquiry of every prospective juror who has already self-identified that they cannot be fair and impartial, or that they are otherwise unable to serve, is unnecessary, time-consuming and of no benefit,” Merchan declared decisively, unlike his Florida federal counterpart. “This Decision is well within the Court’s discretion.” This decision by Merchan will shave days, if not weeks off the trial schedule because of the security measures needed to conduct each individual’s interview.
The jury questionnaire, on the hand, will yield a cornucopia of fun information for Trump’s jury consultants to rip apart. Besides asking if prospective jurors are part of the Trump-friendly groups like the Oath Keepers, Q-Anon, Proud Boys, Three Percenters or the Boogaloo Boys, members of “Antifa” are asked to proclaim their loyalty as well.
They want to know your podcasts, your news sources, and your subscriptions. They want to know if you or a close family member has ever been to a Trump rally or belonged to another cult. And of course, there are a number of questions relating to membership or participation in “anti-Trump” groups or email listervs. Funny how they don’t mention if they’d previously been involved in litigation with Trump; that seems to be common in New York.