Twelve (12) jurors who will assess whether or not the former US President, Donald Trump is guilty or innocent in his criminal trial have been selected by Lawyers on Thursday, 18 April 2024, in a case stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star. Trump is the first ever former U.S. President to be a defendant at a law court. Opening statements could take place on Monday, said Justice Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing the trial.

Trump’s excessive public presence created unique problems during the jury selection process, which started on Monday, 15 April 2024. Roughly half of the first 196 jurors screened in heavily Democratic Manhattan were dismissed after saying they could not assess the evidence impartially.

His criticism of witnesses, prosecutors, the judge and their relatives in this case and others has also raised apprehensions about harassment, making Merchan to impose a partial gag order.
Merchan dismissed the Juror who said she felt intimidated after family, friends and colleagues had deduced that she had been selected for the trial.

“I don’t believe at this point that I can be fair and unbiased, and let the outside influences not affect my decision-making in the courtroom,” the juror said.

Trump, who is the Republican Presidential candidate in the Nov. 5, 2024 election, also faces criminal cases in Washington, Georgia and Florida, but the New York case is the only one certain to go to trial this year. Officials involved in those cases have reported receiving death threats and harassment after being criticized by Trump.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged scheme to silence claims of extramarital sexual encounters during his 2016 Presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty in all four cases and has said, without evidence, that they are part of a broad-ranging effort by allies of Democratic President Joe Biden to hobble his candidacy.

In New York, Trump is accused of covering up a $130,000 payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says they had a decade earlier.

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