Trump Trial Jury Selection Process Follows a Familiar Pattern with an Unpredictable Outcome

In this courtroom sketch, former US President Donald Trump smiles to the jury pool as he is introduced to them at the beginning of his trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York, Monday, April 15, 2024. (Jane Rosenberg/Pool Photo via AP)
In this courtroom sketch, former US President Donald Trump smiles to the jury pool as he is introduced to them at the beginning of his trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York, Monday, April 15, 2024. (Jane Rosenberg/Pool Photo via AP)
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Trump Trial Jury Selection Process Follows a Familiar Pattern with an Unpredictable Outcome

In this courtroom sketch, former US President Donald Trump smiles to the jury pool as he is introduced to them at the beginning of his trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York, Monday, April 15, 2024. (Jane Rosenberg/Pool Photo via AP)
In this courtroom sketch, former US President Donald Trump smiles to the jury pool as he is introduced to them at the beginning of his trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York, Monday, April 15, 2024. (Jane Rosenberg/Pool Photo via AP)

When the first batch of potential jurors was brought in for Donald Trump's criminal trial this week, all the lawyers had to go on to size them up — at first — were their names and the answers they gave in court to a set of screening questions.
Then the lawyers went to work, scouring social media for posts that might reveal whether people in the jury pool had hidden biases or extreme views, The Associated Press said.
One potential juror was dismissed by the judge after the former president's lawyers found a 2017 online post about Trump that said “Lock him up!” Trump's lawyers rejected another potential juror after discovering she had posted a video of New Yorkers celebrating President Joe Biden's election win.
It's all part of an effort by both sides to get a competent jury that — just maybe — might slant slightly in their favor.
Even experts in the art of jury selection say there are limits to what any lawyer can do.
“We never pick a jury. We unpick jurors,” said Tama Kudman, a veteran West Palm Beach, Florida, criminal defense lawyer who also practices in New Jersey and New York.
“We never get who we want. We are just careful to get rid of who we think are dangerous to our clients,” she said. “You know you’ve picked a good jury when nobody’s happy. The prosecution hasn’t gotten who they want. The defense hasn’t gotten who they want. But everybody’s kind of gotten rid of the people who really raise the hair on the back of our neck.”
Jury selection in Trump’s trial resumes Thursday. So far, seven jurors have been chosen for the trial over allegations that Trump falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign. Ultimately, 12 jurors will determine the verdict, with six alternates on standby.
Nearly 200 potential jurors have been brought in so far. All potential jurors will be asked whether they can serve and be fair and impartial. Those who have said “no” so far have all been sent home.
Lawyers on both sides then comb through answers prospective jurors provide orally in court to a set of 42 questions that probe whether they have been part of various extremist groups, have attended pro- or anti-Trump rallies, or have been involved with Trump's political campaigns, among other things.
The judge can dismiss people that don't seem likely to be impartial. Under state law, each side also gets to “strike” up to 10 potential jurors they don't like.
A jury consultant has helped Trump's lawyers research the backgrounds of prospective jurors whose names are provided to lawyers on both sides, but not to the public.
Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, a jury consultant who worked on the O.J. Simpson trial team in the mid-1990s and remains employed in that capacity today, said a social media check has become critical in recent years. She likened it to a “juror polygraph” that can reveal whether a potential juror's answers to questions in court are false.
Still, Dimitrius said, such checks aren't foolproof. Potential jurors can scrub their online footprint before they show up or make their social media accounts private.
Some people considered but not selected for Trump's jury had things on their social media that looked problematic. Some had shared inflammatory posts, including a meme showing Trump beheaded.
In each case, the person was brought into the courtroom alone to confirm the posts indeed appeared or originated on their account — and, in one case, the account of a spouse. They were asked again about their feelings about Trump and whether they could act impartially.
A bookseller who’d previously declined to share his feelings about the former president admitted to holding a “highly unfavorable overall impression” of him after being confronted by a series of Facebook posts, including a video mocking Trump.
In those cases, the judge agreed with Trump’s attorneys that the prospective jurors should be dismissed with cause. But in other instances, Judge Juan M. Merchan said the posts did not rise to that level, forcing Trump’s attorneys to use their limited number of strikes to have the prospective jurors removed.
“The question is not whether someone agrees with your client politically or not, the question is whether or not they can be fair and impartial,” Merchan told Trump’s attorneys.
The process led Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in this year's presidential race, to say in a Truth Social post Wednesday that he thought strikes were supposed to be unlimited, not capped at 10, "as the Witch Hunt continues! ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”
Among six people struck by the Manhattan district attorney's office was a prosecutor who works for the district attorney in the Bronx and a man who works in real estate and said he read Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal."
Perhaps the most memorable was a former corrections officer who said he may have once served on a jury for a case involving Trump and Merv Griffin. He was dismissed by prosecutors after acknowledging that he appreciated Trump’s style of humor.
That man had also expressed reservations about Trump, noting that he’d known relatives of the wrongly accused teenagers in the Central Park Five case — a group that Trump famously said should face the death penalty.
Sabrina Shroff, a criminal defense attorney, said she considers the jury selection process one of the “most stressful and fun” parts of any trial.
“It’s like setting up a blind date with 12 people and you’re hoping that the blind date is at least a friendship at the end. It’s such a roll of the dice,” she said.
Shroff said she goes by her gut when choosing jurors. Scrutinizing social media profiles, she said, can be challenging because what people put online “isn't who they are.”
“Maybe their affiliations are telling,” she said. “You're still guessing. We make the wrong call all the time. Sometimes, you really think the juror was pulling for you and then you find he was leading the charge to convict.”
Shroff added: “You're always worried you have it wrong. You've misread the scowl or the smile. Maybe they aren't smiling at you; just thinking about a movie they saw and liked.”



Israel Says Campaign on Iran to Intensify as Tehran Pledges 'Destructive' Attacks

A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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Israel Says Campaign on Iran to Intensify as Tehran Pledges 'Destructive' Attacks

A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Israel pounded Iran for a second day on Saturday and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its campaign would intensify, while Tehran stated that "heavy and destructive" attacks by Iran against Israel were expected within the coming hours.

Netanyahu said Israel's strikes had set back Iran's nuclear program possibly by years and rejected international calls for restraint.

"We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs' regime, and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days," he said in a video message.

In Tehran, Iranian authorities said around 60 people, including 29 children, were killed in an attack on a housing complex, with more strikes reported across the country. Israel said it had attacked more than 150 targets.

Iran had launched its own retaliatory missile volley on Friday night, killing at least three people in Israel. Air raid sirens sent Israelis into shelters as waves of missiles streaked across the sky and interceptors rose to meet them.

In the first apparent attack to hit Iran's energy infrastructure, Iranian media reported a fire on Saturday after Israel bombed the South Pars gas field in southern Bushehr province. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said some gas production there was suspended following the attack.

"If (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

Iran said 78 people were killed on the first day and scores more on the second.

A military official on Saturday said Israel had caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan, but had not so far taken on another uranium enrichment site, Fordow, dug into a mountain.

The official said Israel had "eliminated the highest commanders of their military leadership" and had killed nine nuclear scientists who were "main sources of knowledge, main forces driving forward the (nuclear) program.”

Satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press revealed some of the damage sustained by Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal in an Israeli attack on the country.

Images from Planet Labs PBC taken Friday showed damage at two missile bases, one in Kermanshah and one in Tabriz, both in western Iran.