“If I were on the jury, no matter what the evidence, I would vote nit (sic) guilty. Unfortunately, we have numerous classmates who woukd (sic) bring a guilty vote even with overwhelming evidence he was not.”
And with those words in an email I was cc’ed on, one of my high school classmates—an educated, intelligent, middle to upper middle class Jewish New Yorker—provided visual proof that our nation’s optimistic hope for equal justice under the law has been shattered, for in his mind, neither side in the Trump saga could judiciously and unbiasedly weigh the evidence and defense before casting a vote on The Donald’s guilt or not (I hesitate to use the term “innocence” as we should all know by now that Trump is far from an innocent in virtually everything he does).
How far our ideals have fallen.
A healthy skepticism, let’s not call it cynicism, has been a hallmark of my professional life as a journalist.
Could I be neutral on a jury assessing Trump’s alleged indiscretions? I’d like to think so, though in all honesty I would be predisposed to believe he was guilty. It would take a strong argument by his defense attorneys to invalidate what is already on the public record and the evidence prosecutors will present, including Trump’s admissions on tape that he possessed top secret material that he did not, could not, declassify as he no longer was president.
Jodi Rudoren, editor in chief of The Forward, wrote a lighthearted paean to jury service which included the following comment from a prospective juror: “‘It’s a real eye-opening experience because I know sometimes us, as civilians, we think you go into court and everything is a certain way and it’s never that way,’” she continued. “‘You really have to listen to the evidence and dissect everything that everyone says, no matter what their position is, what their status is. People’s lives are really on the line here. You have to be diligent and you have to pay attention to the evidence.’” (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/FMfcgzGsnLJkbJQhJXLJxTqpQtDVnvbg)
The focus of our national preoccupation with Trump has shifted from the abstract to the consequential now that formal charges have been lodged against him. At issue—can we find an unbiased jury pool to weigh the evidence and his defense?
By setting the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., as the location of trial proceedings, Judge Aileen M. Cannon has chosen a venue with a predominantly conservative jury pool drawn from counties that overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Though she could switch to a different federal courthouse in the Southern District of Florida, one with a more evenly mixed electorate, for actual jury selection and trial, it would not be surprising if she didn’t, given her appointment to the federal bench by Trump and her initial ruling in his favor, reversed on appeal, on the matter of permitting authorities to continue their investigation of classified documents in his possession (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/us/politics/trump-trial-documents-florida-jury.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare.)
Wherever the trial takes place, it will take a unanimous verdict to convict Trump. If any jurors are predisposed as my classmate expressed, Trump will exit the courtroom a free man. Not innocent. Just found not guilty.
