Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 27 2024 03:51pm)
It's not a fabrication that black women voted against Trump by a 4 vs 94% and 9 vs 90% margin in 2016 and 2020, respectively.
Of course jurors will not be a perfectly neutral demographic - but with how geographically polarized the US population has become, any random selection of individuals from deep blue or deep red territory will still maintain a strong partisan bias even after the lawyers picked off the worst ones with their limited number of peremptory challenges. You will not get a balanced jury in a place like NYC or DC, just like you will not get a truly neutral jury in the trial of a white cop who murdered a black teenager in Bumfuck, Alabama. Which brings me to my last point:
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the jurors don't know the defendant and don't have a strong, pre-existing opinion on him. In an even more overwhelming majority of cases, the outcome of the trial will not have any ramifications for the partisan balance or the future direction of the country. Trump is really unique in this regard since he not only has universal name recognition, but also happens to be the most polarizing figure in recent American history. In the case of Trump, expecting the jurors to set aside their personal feelings and rule strictly on the merits of the case is a lot tougher since people feel much more strongly about Trump (one way or the other) than about pretty much any other defendant.
You are applying your own experience, where you follow politics and have strong opinions. The average person doesn't pay any attention to politics. Even the average voter doesn't pay that close attention or have particularly strong feelings. Even in deep blue places it's pretty easy to find ambivalent people and even strong Trump supporters.
A rich white guy with millions of dollars to pay his lawyers with is not getting the short end of the stick in our legal system. In fact, the legal system has at every step bent over backwards to ensure Trump got treated far better than the average person, this case was no exception.
Our system is adversarial. Trump's lawyers get the opportunity to exempt jurors, but otherwise have to prove bias. If they can't, that's on them. The system works extremely well for rich people, and there's no argument that jury selection went wrong when you are throwing millions of dollars at your lawyers and have sophisticated council at your disposal.
This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jan 27 2024 04:15pm