Dem
51
GOP
49
The trial of Sidney Powell and Ken "The Cheese" Chesebro will begin Oct. 23. Empaneling a jury could be difficult since the trial could possibly last for weeks, maybe even months. Not many people will be willing or able to sit still so long. So, Judge McAfee is anticipating that finding 12 jurors and a few alternates could be problematic. Consequently, he is starting early and has subpoenaed 900 people to start the process of voir dire. Is this a lot? Yes, it is exponentially more than normal, but McAfee knows that many potential jurors will be disqualified, so he needs a really big pool to start with.
The attorneys have been asked to submit their questions for the voir dire but have no done so yet. Then each candidate juror will get a questionnaire to fill out. Based on that, the jury pool will be thinned. Clearly, anybody who wants out can get out easily by answering some question by exhibiting bias. For example, on the question "Can you be impartial and make a decision based solely on the law and the facts?" an answer of "The defendants tried to destroy democracy. They should rot in jail. I know enough already and I am eager to tell the other jurors that" should do the job.
Once the lawyers have whittled down the pool to a more manageable number, the actual questioning can begin. The lawyers have a certain number of peremptory challenges in which they can strike a potential juror for any reason or for no reason. Once they are used up, one of the lawyers can ask the judge to strike a potential juror for cause, but the judge gets the call. (V)