Donald Trump won 12% of the Manhattan vote. Can he get a fair trial there?

If Donald Trump were to be tried anywhere in New York, the Manhattan borough could be the worst place for the former president.

“Ask a person in Manhattan today if they’ve done anything wrong … I think, 95 percent of people will say, they’ve done something wrong,” said Mark Bederow, a criminal defense attorney and former New York City prosecutor. .

This is the challenge that Trump now faces as he seeks an impartial jury and a fair trial in a Manhattan courtroom after being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on charges related to payments made in 2016 to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Although Trump spent almost 70 years of his life in New York City, and he is a Manhattanite, his long residence there has not necessarily made him love his hometown.

If the results of the 2020 presidential election are a measure of popularity, the country itself was won by Joe Biden with more than 60 percent, compared to 38 percent obtained by Trump.

But in the New York district of Manhattan, Trump was particularly unpopular and lost, getting just over 12 percent of the vote. (He got 27 percent in his hometown of Queens.)

Trump himself has denied that in this case, the legal deck is stacked against him, posting on Truth Social last night that the indictment was brought, in part, because “they know I can’t get a fair trial in New York!”

A valid argument

At this particular point, Matthew J. Galluzzo, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, believes that Trump can have a valid argument; finding jurors who can put aside their personal animus against them can be difficult.

“In Manhattan, there was a lot of publicity about this indictment, about this case, and there was a lot of vitriol against him,” Galluzzo said. “He’s not a popular man in Manhattan. You can imagine people wanting to convict him just because he is who he is, regardless of any evidence.”

Some of the Wall Street finance crowd may be sympathetic jurors, but the jury pool in Manhattan often includes lawyers, doctors, artists, or recent college graduates — jurors who would not be considered “Trump people,” Galluzzo said.

“I think it will be very difficult to find 12 jurors willing to acquit,” he said.

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Defendants can request that their cases be transferred from one county to another, Gallluzzo said, but it is rare for such applications to be granted by a judge. Also, deciding where in New York state might be fairer for Trump might be difficult.

“We’re supposed to look at the election results? We’re supposed to go to the polls? I don’t know how we can decide,” he said. “Is that fair?”

With emotions running so high with former presidents, either for or against, “I think it’s hard to find an impartial jury on the planet, frankly,” Galluzzo said.

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The point of switching places is to go to a different area where perhaps the The jury pool has evened out, or at least it is not familiar with the case, said Bederow.

“And then Donald Trump came in. Where did you even go?”

Trial by judge?

Another option available to Trump is to have a bench trial – a trial by the judge himself.

“I’m sure the lawyers are going to think seriously about eliminating the jury and putting this in the hands of the judge,” Bederow said in an interview before Trump was indicted. “That would certainly put the worst pressure on people you can imagine.”

But Galluzzo says the trick in bench testing is always being able to read the room.

“How does the judge see my client, how does the judge talk about the case? Maybe he’ll try to gauge this judge and what he thinks the judge can do.”

Melissa Gomez, a jury consultant and president of Philadelphia-based MMG Jury Consulting, said while it will be a challenge to get an impartial jury for Trump, she doesn’t believe it’s impossible.

But one concern is potential jurors who seem eager to be a part of the case and answer questions the way they would expect a juror to, he said.

“[Those who say] ‘Oh, yes, I can be fair and unfair. Oh, I can separate my political views from the evidence in this case.’ Say all the right words,” Gomez said.

“As someone who picks a lot of jurors, I’m usually very skeptical. And I pay a lot of attention to jurors who seem to want to be there.”

Gomez said that for the prosecution and the defense, it’s not just about asking the right questions to prospective jurors, but trying to identify whether there is a background or conviction, or something they’ve said in public, that raises suspicions that they want to have a “greater impact” by ensure that Trump is convicted or acquitted.

But, for the defense, it would be a responsibility not to say that no Democrat can serve on a jury.

“It’s just not going to happen,” she said.

‘Detail oriented person’

Instead, the defense must identify those it believes have the ability to separate emotion and logic and identify those who appear to be more emotional, Gomez said.

“I want to make sure that we have detail-oriented people who work in thinking professions where they are looking at information and evidence without emotion. And that seems to be only very advanced and not leading with emotion,” he said.

“Even the question of political orientation is not the only factor,” Gomez said. For example, you might have Democrats who don’t like Trump but don’t trust the police.

Galluzzo said the defense, when it comes to jurors, should be reminded that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, insists that the case is not about political reasons, but “about the rule of law.”

“Likewise, don’t be punished [Trump’s] politics. Don’t make a statement just because of who they are,” Galluzzo said. “What’s most important is that we follow the law and treat people fairly, even if we don’t like them.“

U.S. Attorney Norm Eisen, who served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for Trump’s first impeachment trial, said that based on his experience, jurors have the ability to set aside their personal feelings and apply the law fairly to the evidence presented before them.

“My experience is that he answered honestly, which doesn’t get rid of his bias, he said,” he said in an interview before the indictment.

“I think [the jury system is] one of the great institutions of the American rule of law. And I have confidence, including to solve this case.