Loki wrote: ↑Wed Apr 17, 2024 1:59 pm
pipbarber wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 10:46 am
50 potential jurors in the upcoming hush money trial claim they can't be impartial toward Trump, or so the radio is reporting. Is there anyone in America that could honestly claim an impartial or neutral attitude toward the orange sputum? I'd not trust anyone who made such a claim, especially if it were true. I mean, if you live in 'merica and have 'no opinion' on Trump you're probably a lunatic.
Makes me wonder if a jury trial is entirely appropriate for someone like Trump.
I'm pretty sure i can think Trump is an putrid entitled dickhead and still objectively decide whether monies were used appropriately as set out in various legal acts and regulations.
This trial isn't about whether Trump is objectionable for paying hush money, it is about whether Trump was legally able to apply that money to that purpose in that manner and whether his actions were designed to deliberately obscure illegalities.
If simply liking or not liking a person or even having heard of them before was enough to exclude you from their jury a lot of trials would be simply impossible.
Actually i don't think trial by jury is appropriate for significant public figures, or maybe even significant cases that have mass public profile. I'm just skeptical that bias can be reasoned into silence, no matter how determined the reasoner is.
But the argument against that, in this case, would be that this is pretty straightforward, as you say Loki. We are dealing here, not with legal ambiguities and complexities, but with what indeed seems like brute fact. Did he authorize hush money payments or not? So maybe with careful selection you could find the jurors.
The alternative to a jury trial is trial by a panel of judges, which is no solution at all because if i've concluded that juries can't be objective in public interest cases, because they're human and the biases of lived experience impacts reason, then the same is true of judges.
The reality in most legal systems is that money hence great lawyers significantly increase the chance of winning. All legal systems are riddled with inequalities and injustices, i accept that it's imperfect and all you can do is trust in the process of jury selection. My fear though is that a maga sleeper finds their way onto the jury and Trump wins, conviction must be unanimous, in spite of all the evidence against him. I think it's a legitimate concern, in this case.