Dem
51
GOP
49
As of the moment, Donald Trump's first criminal trial is scheduled to start April 15. Next Monday's headline everywhere: Trump on trial. Of course, Trump's lawyers will file every conceivable motion they can think of. For example, it is not fair to try him a week after an eclipse because the eclipse is a sign that God is against the trial. Judge Juan Merchan will probably swat all of them down. He's clearly had enough of this.
This trial stuff is starting to be serious. About 500 potential jury members have been sent notices to be at the Manhattan criminal court next Monday. This is a staggering number. They may or may not know that they are in the jury pool. All of them will be asked to fill out extensive questionnaires in an attempt to eliminate people who are overtly biased. One of the questions is "Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen?" The judge and all the lawyers will look at the answer to this and related questions quite keenly.
The survivors will be questioned in court to see if they have already made up their minds about the case. This would be a good opportunity for anyone who doesn't want to be on the jury to show up wearing a MAGA hat and announce that Donald Trump is a god-king and is thus exempt from the laws of the State of New York. Being registered as a Democrat or Republican is not a de facto disqualification.
There may also be people who have already made up their minds and very much want to be on the jury and will try to give the answers they think the judge wants. To try to catch these folks, both sides have jury consultants who will go over the public lives of the potential jurors, to see what Google knows about them and especially what Facebook, eX-Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok know about them. Folks with strong and public opinions about Trump are going to bite the dust here. The group will eventually be whittled down to 12 jury members and several alternates (in case a member or two dies or is incapacitated during the trial). It is almost certain that the names of the jury members will not be made public and the jurors may be hidden behind a screen or even be in a different room during the trial.
Saturday, Trump went after Judge Juan Merchan's gag order, posting: "If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the clink for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela—It will be my GREAT HONOR" to his boutique-but-overpriced social media website. However, Merchan probably wouldn't do that. More likely if Trump violates the judge's most recent gag order, he will punish Trump by releasing the names of the jurors to the prosecution but not to Trump's lawyers. The gag order specifically said: "Any right he may have to access to juror names will be forfeited by continued harassing or disruptive conduct." This would allow the prosecution to learn more about the jurors to see what kind of arguments might work with them.
Trump's lawyers are sure to claim that it will be impossible to empanel an unbiased jury due to all the pretrial publicity. However, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg is then going to say the pretrial publicity was caused by Trump himself so it's his own fault. (V)