by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
100 CENTRE ST COURT, April 18 – In the Trump Trial on Day 3 of jury selection, the official 12 were selected, and so far, one alternate.
It was a back then forward process, in which two of the seven already selected jurors were removed, but then at the end of the day once the peremptory challenges ran out, seven jurors and one alternate were selected.
Based on one juror's complaint, Justice Merchan admonished the Press to not report where people worked, nor if they had (just for example) a strong Irish accent.
Did this mean to not report that one prospective juror came from Venezuela, and has a position on the Hispanic National Bar Foundation?
Or that another, from Nevada, said his father was good friends with Harry Reid? Later there was a Hakeem Jeffries shout out and some asked, What was the difference? What indeed.
One juror that didn't make it - so now it could be told - was a law clerk at SDNY, and an intern in EDNY. She had discussed Mark Pomerantz' book with her co-worker, she said.
She was off - but a woman who stayed in Trump lawyer Susan Necheles' house, albeit 15 years ago, and whose husband wrote an "anti-Trump" book review, could only be struck by peremptory, after Trump's for-cause challenge was denied.
It now seemed that opening arguments could in fact take place on Monday, April 23. Already there was talk of "line sitters," at a cost or wage of $65 an hour. Why not more overflow courtrooms? Answers were hard to come by.
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