![]() ![]() ![]() Trump face pretrial exposure to extensive media coverage. Of course, jurors in high-profile cases such as United States v. Like all criminal defendants, Trump will enjoy the protection that the jury will offer him from abuse by the government's prosecutors. If he chooses to go to trial, Donald Trump will face a jury of his peers carefully scrutinized by his defense attorneys for potential bias, who may be replaced in the event they misbehave. In Trump's case, jurors' political affiliations, and the depth of their partisan commitments, may be relevant and permissible grounds for questioning at the trial court's discretion.įederal rules allow up to six alternative jurors in the event one is dismissed by the judge for improper behavior, such as violating the judge's instructions about access to media or discussing the case with people outside of court. ![]() The process called "voir dire" allows defense attorneys to request that the judge reject certain potential jurors for cause - on grounds of some demonstrated issue of bias, such as when questioning of a juror reveals strong prejudice for or against a defendant. The jury pool in federal cases is randomly drawn from registered voters and people with driver's licenses who live in the district. In federal court in criminal prosecutions, such as Trump's, a 12-member jury is a matter of right, and that jury must reach a unanimous verdict to convict. "It was just such abuses that caused our English and American forebears to prize trial by jury so highly," Powell said.Īnd Thomas Jefferson wrote that he "consider trial by jury as the only anchor even yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell observed in 1966 that juries are especially significant in the trial of crimes against the state such as treason and sedition, which therefore can be considered political - and perhaps more open to prosecutorial abuse. Sourced to the Magna Carta, the 13th-century charter of rights, jury trials have become a feature in all countries that share the British legal tradition, shielding citizens from unlimited prosecutorial power.Īs the shrewd observer Alexis de Tocqueville remarked in 1835, juries "place the real direction of society in the hands of the governed he who punishes the criminal. That right, to have a jury of 12 citizens render judgment on his case, protects Trump from the government's overstepping citizens' limits on its power - a dynamic that is often lost in the political sound and fury over his state and federal indictments. Trump's defenders have alleged that the indictment is a politically motivated "witch hunt" by the Biden administration and that any conviction would thus be discredited.īut like all federal defendants, Trump will be protected by the Sixth Amendment's right to a jury trial. Trump appeared in federal court on June 13, 2023, for his arraignment and the formal presentation of the charges lodged against him in a 37-count indictment released on June 9. It will be 12 jury members in his eventual trial. It is not the federal government that will hold Donald Trump's future in its hands. ![]()
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