Could a stealth juror derail Trump’s trial?

One of the top priorities for both sides in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial will be to root out potential “stealth jurors” – those who claim to be impartial but who have hidden theirbiases to get on a jury and possibly derail a trial.

Mr Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in the case after he allegedly instructed his then-fixer, now-witness for the prosecution Michael Cohen to pay off adult actor Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election to remain quiet about her claim that she had an affair with Mr Trump in 2006.

Jurors are supposed to be impartial. A number of prospective jurors have been dismissed from the proceedings simply because they felt they could not be neutral while sitting in judgment of the former president.

Steve Duffy, from Trial Behavior Consulting, told The Independent that stealth jurors “fully have an opinion … but [are] trying to get on the jury”.

“I have no doubt that there are jurors in the pool on both sides, who really want to be on the jury [but] have a very strong opinion, either for or against him, and are deliberately not saying anything to try to get on,” Mr Duffy argues. “The way you figure out who those people are is with background research, which … both sides are undoubtedly doing.”

Manhattan prosecutors have posed several questions for jurors in the first week of the trial. Among them: can they follow the facts and the evidence and the judge’s instructions, and can they remain fair and impartial, despite knowing the man sitting at the defence table in front of them is “a former president and a current candidate for that office”?

“We don’t expect you to be living under a rock for the last eight years, or the last 30 years,” Assistant District