'Bring their own biases': FL lawyers predict difficulty 'finding truly impartial jurors' in Trump docs case
With ex-President Donald Trump's classified documents trial taking place in a Florida courthouse, with a "jury pool from a conservative-leaning region" of the Sunshine State, the 2024 MAGA hopeful could have a higher chance of beating the case, KENS 5 News reports.
KENS 5 notes, "The jury selection process is meant to weed out personal or partisan bias that could taint the case, with jurors instructed to make decisions solely on the basis of the evidence they hear. But in a federal court system where convictions overwhelmingly outnumber acquittals, defense lawyers — and prosecutors, for that matter — could nonetheless look to jury selection as a way to elicit an edge."
Furthermore, the news outlet reports:
Jurors for Fort Pierce trials are drawn from five counties, according to the written jury plan for the Southern District of Florida: St. Lucie, Martin, Indian River, Okeechobee and Highlands.
Trump won each of those counties. His victory margin was particularly wide in Okeechobee, where he won with 71.8% of the votes. In St. Lucie, home to Fort Pierce, he won by only 50.4%, but Republicans have continued to gain ground there, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was reelected last year with more than 59% of the vote there.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?
Former United States Department of Justice official and Florida defense attorney Richard Serafini insists, "It's a high-profile defendant, but I suspect that when push comes to shove, most people don't make all of their important decisions based on politics."
Another issue, the report notes, is "such a blockbuster trial, with a deluge of media, could test the resources of a courthouse and region far less accustomed to headline-generating events than is, for instance, Miami."
However, ex-federal prosecutor and Florida attorney David Weinstein believes, "The bigger issue is going to become, can the Fort Pierce courtroom handle this case? And if it can't, where are they going to send it? And if they send it to Miami, how are they going to get the jurors there because technically it's not a Miami case."
Miami prosecutor and ex-Trump administration acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin adds, "Picking a jury is an art. It's not a science. And whether you're a prosecutor or a defense attorney, you use everything in your arsenal to seat the best jury you can get for your case. You want to ensure that you have the best people in that jury box that are going to be receptive to your message. So from that perspective, if I'm DOJ, I'd much rather have a Miami jury pool than a Fort Pierce jury pool."
Still, Florida criminal defense lawyer Richard Kibbey says, "The more conservative the counties, the highest chance he has to find jurors that would be sympathetic with him. When it comes to finding truly impartial jurors, it's going to be very difficult given the political climate across the country. Jurors will bring their own biases into the court room."
KENS 5 News's full report is available at this link.
