As the defense in former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial rested its case Tuesday, attorneys from both camps will prepare for closing arguments, ultimately sending the jury to deliberate—leaving open the possibility of jury sequestration, though experts doubt that will happen.
If the jury in former President Donald Trump's criminal trial is sequestered, they will be forced to ... [+]
If Judge Juan Merchan decides to sequester the jury, its members would not be able to return to their homes at the end of each day, instead staying in a hotel, “where their access to other people, radio, television news, and newspapers is limited,” according to New York’s juror’s handbook.
Those jurors’ meals and lodging would be paid by the county, which in Trump’s case would fall to New York County, congruent with the borough of Manhattan.
Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now at Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner LLP, told Forbes the jury could be sequestered during deliberation even if it wasn’t for the rest of the trial, though he bemoaned that possibility, calling it a “deprivation of liberty” and the “functional equivalent of putting the jury in jail.”
Even during deliberation, however, sequestration might not come to fruition, John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Molly Kalmus told Forbes, saying “it’s possible,” though she doubts “there’s a high likelihood of it.”
Criminal defense attorney Mark Bederow agreed, telling Forbes last month that even before witnesses took the stand the “ship has sailed” for sequestration and that prospective jurors would have likely been informed upon entering the courtroom that they could be sequestered.
While Bederow noted that sequestration could shield a jury from outside influences, he argued “it’s impossible not to be influenced by forces happening outside” if “you’re trying a former president of the United States and current nominee for president in the media capital of the world.”
Under New York state law, a trial judge is responsible for deciding whether or not to sequester a jury—sequestration had previously been mandatory in New York until a state law expired in 1999, with a new law passed two years later removing the automatic sequestration requirement.
Sequestration could also impose unwanted effects on the jury, according to a 1996 study in “Judicature” that found the “negative impacts of sequestration normally outweigh its virtues.”
According to that study, sequestration had cost roughly $4 million across the state, while the practice “compounds the stress of a trial” with jurors resenting the experience and possibly “vent[ing] their wrath on one of the trial adversaries” or pushing to speed up a verdict.
Jurors in New York are compensated $40 each day they are present at the trial, unless they also receive regular wages in excess of $40 per day or if they work for a company with over 10 employees, in which case that juror would receive $40 or their regular daily wage from their employer for their first three days in the court.
The 12 jurors, all Manhattan residents, were empaneled after answering what Merchan labeled the “most exhaustive questionnaire” the court had seen, with defense attorneys and prosecutors both grilling them as to whether they can be fair and impartial. Just two days after they were seated, however, two of those jurors were excused, including one who told the court she had been identified by people she knew and had doubts as to whether she could remain unbiased. Another empaneled juror faced questions from prosecutors last month as to whether he lied in his questionnaire on a question about his past experience with the law, after the New York Times reported someone with the same name was allegedly arrested for tearing down political ads in the 1990s.
Closing arguments are expected to begin next Tuesday, following the Memorial Day weekend.
Trump was indicted last March on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records, marking the former president and 2024 GOP nominee’s first of four criminal indictments since launching his 2024 presidential campaign. The record at the center of the case is a $420,000 payment to Cohen in the lead-up to the 2016 election, which prosecutors claim was a reimbursement for Cohen’s hush money payment to Daniels to remain silent on an alleged affair with Trump. The former president pleaded not guilty to the charges and has repeatedly slammed the case as a “witch hunt,” claiming without evidence that Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, are working with the Biden Administration to sway the results of the 2024 election.