Skuj wrote:
I have never believed that you can have an impartial jury in a Trump case in America in 2024. I don't care how many questions they asked during selection.
You never know. I think it's always a mistake to confidently predict what a jury is going to do (doesn't stop many in here, though I'm sure if someone ends up correct it'll be purely from intellect and not sheer chance that the emotionally desired outcome ended up being the actual outcome).
I was on one jury that had one black woman. And the defendent was black. It was very clear for the bulk of the trial that she was dead set against conviction. Arms folded. I don't remember how the prosecution let her stay, as she was clearly skeptical about issues related to black people and judicial bias even before the facts of the case were presented.
But she came around. Not with "forcing" her to see the evidence as the rest of us did, but by carefully listening to her, and responding with respect. And often humor. Every one of my juries developed a great rapport - a team-like "we're in this together" attitude. Despite wildly different backgrounds. You get a bit of a bunker mentality - an "us against the world" feeling. In all my juries there was a very strong "good faith" effort to reach a conscensus. We *wanted* to get it right.
Of course hung juries are very possible. Just pointing out that a jury develops its own culture that was suprisingly powerful in all my juries.