Serving on a jury for a high-profile case like Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial or the Karen Read murder trial has always been challenging — jurors put their lives on hold for lengthy periods and are not able to relieve that anxiety by talking about it with family and friends.
But increased polarization in recent years has made those challenges even deeper, says Miles Hutton, jury consultant at Decision Quest, a trial consulting firm that assists lawyers with witness preparation, jury selection and mock trials.
“Things have gotten so polarized in our society that people don’t only think that the jury made the wrong decision, but they think that they’re willingly complicit in a corrupt system,” said Hutton.
Following two days of deliberations, New York jurors on Thursday convicted Donald Trump of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal during his 2016 presidential bid. The trial lasted six weeks.
“Trump in his trial brought up the idea that the jury selection process was not fair, that it was held in a 95 percent Democratic area and that he would never get a fair trial,” said Hutton. “This is not only directed at the judge and the prosecutors, but also at the jury.”
Online threats from Trump supporters to judge, prosecutors and jurors have been reported. Hutton said judges are aware of the challenges and are taking more precautions.
Chris Dearborn, a professor of law at Suffolk University and a long-time criminal defense lawyer, said jurors in high-profile cases like the Trump trial can become nervous that their identities will be divulged.
While the judge in Trump’s case took measures to protect the jurors’ identities by not allowing cameras in the courtrooms, Dearborn said leaks are possible.
“Your neighbors, your coworkers and your family, they know, right. And ... if you have a 12-year-old kid who goes to school and you’re talking about stuff, that kid’s going to tell his friends that his mother or father [or] uncle was on a jury. They’re not going to keep that secret,” said Dearborn.
Experts said that these high profile cases are not necessarily a deterrent for serving on a jury, as each person still has to go through the “voir dire” selection process, where the judge and opposing counsels can evaluate each juror.
Locally, the same phenomenon is playing out with the Karen Read murder trial at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham.
Read is accused of killing her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow. On April 29, jurors began hearing testimony.
Bhamati Viswanathan, a faculty fellow at New England Law, said jurors are regular people doing their civic duty, so they have a high expectation of privacy. For jurors, the prospect of being exposed and scrutinized is frightening.
“The biggest challenge for jurors in both the Trump and Karen Read trial is the massive amounts of publicity, massive amount of spotlight glaring down on you and massive fear, maybe of not only who’s controlling the narrative, but of the narrative getting out of control really fast,” Viswanathan said.
A complication in the Karen Read case: The victim and many witnesses are members of law enforcement, and there are allegations of a coverup. It puts jurors in a difficult position.
“If you find Karen Read guilty, you’re part of the conspiracy with the police. And if you find her not guilty, you’re part of the army of bloggers, like Turtleboy and you’re anti-law enforcement,” said Hutton.
Sometimes, the challenge a juror faces is confusion, having to untangle complicated legal concepts, and even boredom.
Dearborn noted that Trump’s defense team’s closing arguments were long, discombobulated and may have confused the jury. Meanwhile, he said the prosecution presented a clean, short easy-to-follow narrative.
But, he said the Read case may be different. “It sure seems like a lot of fireworks keep coming up in that case and a lot of very strange pieces of evidence and testimony, that has to really be intriguing somebody on that jury.”
