Trump complains about secret trial jury selection

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media on the first day of his trial for allegedly hiding secret money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 15, 2024 in New York.

Jefferson Siegel | Getty Images

Donald Trump complained Wednesday that his lawyers were not given “unlimited” chances to reject potential jurors at his secret criminal trial in New York.

But state law limits the number of potential jurors his attorneys can exclude without cause.

Trump received the correct number of warnings given the type of criminal charges he faces: 10 peremptory warnings for jurors, plus two more for each alternate juror.

“I thought STRIKES were supposed to be 'unlimited' when we were picking our jury?” Trump wrote in an article on Truth Social. “I was then told we only had 10, which was nowhere near enough when we were deliberately given the second worst venue in the country.”

His complaints came a day after the first seven jurors were selected for the trial in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Five additional jurors and six alternates must still be seated when the selection process resumes Thursday with a new group of 96 potential jurors, after a break on Wednesday.

In New York criminal trials, both prosecutors and the defense are entitled to a certain number of peremptory strikes, which can be used to dismiss prospective jurors without any reason.

The number of strikes allocated depends on the highest level of crime charged.

The Class E felony trials, which include the falsifying business records charges Trump faces, are the least contested.

Samantha Chorny, a criminal lawyer in New York, told CNBC that if there were unlimited peremptory strikes, as Trump wants, “I mean, no one would ever pick a jury.”

Trump's Truth Social complaint demonstrates “his willful ignorance of the law,” said Jeremy Saland, another New York criminal lawyer.

Saland said it's hard to imagine Trump “doesn't know this simple fact” about strike rules for jury selection, especially since he faces four pending criminal cases.

“That tells me that he doesn’t really believe” what he’s saying and that Trump is trying to “appear like a victim,” Saland said.

Although Trump is considered innocent until proven guilty, “this kind of nonsense is really detrimental to law and order,” Saland said.

Trump's lawyers and prosecutors can make an unlimited number of requests to Judge Juan Merchan to strike a potential juror for cause.

Cause may include a person's inability to be fair and impartial to either party during a trial.

Merchan on Tuesday rejected at least one request from Trump's lawyers to strike a potential juror for cause.

Former President Donald Trump visits the Sanaa Store, a bodega in upper Manhattan, minutes after leaving Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, NY, Tuesday, April 16, 2024.

Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Some legal experts initially expected it would take up to two weeks to select a jury, highlighting the alleged difficulty in finding people who could fairly judge the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president.

But after the first group of jurors were seated Tuesday, Merchan said opening statements could begin Monday morning if the current pace of jury selection continues.

Trump, after the court on Tuesday accused Merchan of “rushing.” But he has previously complained that the planned length of the trial, expected to last six weeks, is a form of “election interference” because it would take him away from the campaign trail.

Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records related to the $130,000 secret payment his then-lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses Trump of trying to influence that election, which he ended up winning, by secretly preventing Daniels from talking about a sexual tryst she had with Trump years earlier. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.

After the trial adjourned Tuesday afternoon, Trump visited the Sanaa store in Harlem, which was the site of a fatal stabbing in 2022 that led to a controversial charging decision by Bragg's office.

Read more about Trump's secret trial

Store clerk Jose Alba was arrested and charged with murder after stabbing an ex-convict who attacked him in the store. But Bragg dropped the charges a few weeks later after public outcry over the arrest, which kept Alba in jail for weeks.

Trump's visit to the store was the first campaign-related event he has held in his bid to unseat President Joe Biden since his trial began Monday.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Bragg said of Alba's case: “This case was resolved almost two years ago and the charges were dropped after a thorough investigation.”

“DA Bragg's top priority remains fighting violent crime and the office has worked hand-in-hand with the NYPD to reduce overall crime in Manhattan, including a double-digit decrease in homicides and shootings since taking office,” the spokesperson said.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Jose Alba's name.

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