this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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They’re only going to find jurors that are pro clubbing seals and hating puppies.
Edit: Thanks, everyone. I know how jury selection works. I was being facetious.
It's remarkably hard to do in a well diversified like NYC.
There is a set group of randomly chosen individuals for jury duty. From that group some will be dismissed for issues unrelated to the case, at the judge's discretion. From the thinned group we get voir dire where each side will ask questions to determine any sort of biases they want or don't want. Each side has a limited number of dismissals. At the end we get 12 people (plus some backups). And those 12 individuals must come to a unanimous decision, if not then we get a mistrial and the Prosecution has to decide whether to spend the time and public funds to try it again, from the top with a new jury. Who again go through the same process. There are seemingly slam dunk cases that get dropped simply because of multiple juries not coming to an agreement.
With highly politicized topics, finding 12 random individuals from the jury pool that can come to a unanimous agreement is a tall order, and that doesn't even get into jury nullification where they decide that it happened but they don't care, or think it was justified.
And when your jury pool is going to be filled with individuals that the victim was directly responsible for causing pain and suffering... Well it might not BE possible.
And they will. Considering they're trying to throw every possible charge at him out of desperation and to make him into an example, there isn't a chance in hell they would let him walk.
Finding one set of possible jurors is hard enough, if they don't get it the first time, the chances get even smaller each additional time. Especially since those potential jurors will have had a chance to see the evidence that already resulted in one failed prosecution.
BOTH sides select the jury.
Technically true, but factually complicated. "Pick" really means "neither side has a valid objection, and the judge decides what's valid or not." Unfortunately, "has too much sympathy" will almost certainly always be held as a valid objection, but "doesn't have enough sympathy" will almost certainly never be held as a valid objection.
And that's even before you consider the judge's conflicts of interest.
So it might be a tough time for prosecutors, but it's still going to be a much tougher time for the defense.