A teacher, a software engineer and a banker: These are the New Yorkers who hold Trump’s fate in their hands

A teacher, two lawyers and people working in finance are among the jurors tasked with hearing the first-ever criminal trial against a US president.

This week, a pivotal process was carried out in a courtroom in Manhattan to select the group of jurors in the so-called hush money case against Donald Trump, as he faces charges of falsifying business records to conceal payments to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

During the first four days of the historic trial in a New York City courtroom, the former president snapped awake from the defence table and craned his neck to get a good view of the jury box and the pool of New Yorkers who could ultimately convict him of a crime.

Mr Trump has repeatedly tried, and failed, to move the case out of the borough, where he baselessly smeared the borough as hopelessly biased against him.

And so, during jury selection in the trial, he sat and heard firsthand from a group of Manhattan residents who pledged that they would be fair and impartial in hearing the case against him.

First, Manhattan residents who received notices to appear in court for jury duty that day were asked whether they can be fair and impartial, or if they have urgent obligations that would prevent them from attending court for four days a week for up to two months.

From that group, jurors were randomly selected to read their answers to a 42-question survey, covering their families and relationships, jobs, news diet, and whether they’ve ever interacted with Mr Trump’s campaign or worked for his business.

Lawyers for Mr Trump and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office then were allowed to ask those potential jurors other questions before making their requests to “strike” or remove any of them