Jurors were center stage on Thursday, in the Washington Post, New York Times and other media outlets, who also philosophized about the structure of juries and asked about how those 12 New Yorkers now move on with their “normal lives.”
Columnist Jonathan Alter from The New York Times recounted the moments leading up to the verdict:
Around 4:30 p.m., (New York Supreme Court Justice Juan) Merchan mounted the bench and announced that he had received a note from the jury. I first thought it was another request for more evidence to be read back. This was a conscientious jury that had been deliberating since midday on Wednesday. But the note said that a verdict had been reached and jurors needed another half-hour before announcing it.
You could hear a collective gasp in the courtroom.
At 5:03 p.m., the jury entered. After the foreperson, an Irish-born former waiter clad in a blue pullover, stood and confirmed that the jury had reached a verdict, he was asked about each count and said “guilty” 34 times.
The defense was asked if it wanted to waive its right to poll the jurors and, of course, said no. When asked, “Is that your verdict?” each of the other 11 jurors — their poker faces intact — calmly answered “Yes.”
Many accounts from Thursday note that Merchan thanked the jurors for their service, saying that they “were engaged in a very stressful and difficult task.”
Isaac Stanley Becker for the Washington Post looked ahead, as the 12 jurors return to their daily lives after six weeks largely spent in 100 Centre Street, Manhattan’s criminal courthouse.
“Having delivered their verdict, finding Trump guilty on 34 felony charges of falsifying records to conceal a sex scandal, the jurors were loosed on Thursday to their homes in Harlem, Hell’s Kitchen and other locations around the city,” Becker wrote. “After dispensing with a civic obligation at once routine and historic — in the first criminal trial of a former president — members of the panel now return to their day jobs in sales, finance, education and health care.”
The return to normalcy may not be without hurdles, Becker wrote. “The transition is likely to be a disorienting one, said Marc J. Whiten, a retired New York criminal court judge in Manhattan and the Bronx. ‘It’s a surreal experience under ordinary circumstances,’ Whiten said. ‘Most days, you go to work and do your job, then you get home at night and go to bed. Suddenly, you have the power to decide whether someone’s freedom is taken away. Here that someone is a former president. That’s big. That’s surreal. And it’s difficult to put behind you.’”
The jurors’ names were known only to the prosecution and defense teams. Because of “the likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment,” Merchan had shielded their identities from the media and the public, Becker wrote. The judge had also ordered reporters not to publicize the employers of prospective jurors in April, during the voir dire selection process, as they were asked about their political views and other details about their lives. In the end, the selected jury was made up of seven men and five women. "They are Black and White as well as Asian, ranging from young to middle age,” Becker noted. (CJN used a generic jury photo to illustrate this item.)
Opinion writer Robin Givhan also focused on the jury for her piece in the Washington Post, entitled “Bless the Trump jury, not for the verdict but for their service.”
As Givhan wrote, “At a time when Americans can barely agree on whether the sky is blue or the grass is green, five women and seven men, all strangers until two months ago, agreed that former president Donald Trump was guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree — a felony. They rendered their verdict Thursday evening with solemnity and care after deliberating over the course of two days.”
As Givhan reached her conclusion, she ruminated on the beauty of juries. “The idea that public integrity must be defended, can be, is fueled in large measure by idealism. Pure optimism makes one believe that 12 ordinary folks — with different levels of education and life experiences, who may have little in common — can come together and find consensus. Each juror matters equally. No one’s words inherently carry additional weight. The idea of it is breathtaking.”