Dismissed Trump jurors describe intense days in the spotlight

NEW YORK — The two Manhattan residents were ushered into the courtroom to fulfill a basic civic duty: to be questioned as potential jurors.

But in the room when they arrived was a defendant, Donald Trump, unlike any other in American history.

The two prospective jurors, a man and a woman, were ultimately excused. But this experience put them in the spotlight in ways they never imagined.

One of them was challenged by Trump’s lawyers over his past social media posts about the former president. The other has a medical practice that she couldn’t close for six weeks while she was on the jury.

Even though they were not chosen as jurors, their experiences illustrate the intensity of the focus on Trump’s trial — and the first jury to ever weigh the fate of a former U.S. president in a criminal proceeding.

Both contacted The New York Times only after being excused from serving. Even though court rules protecting the identity of prospective jurors end when they are dismissed, the Times remembers their names and most of the characteristics about them.

Like other potential jurors who were considered, both included detailed personal information in the juror questionnaires they completed, including where they worked.

They were asked to answer these questions by speaking into a microphone in open court; Soon, both were blindsided as details of their lives ricocheted across the Internet. They said they were frustrated that so much attention was being paid to prospective jurors and the search for information about them.

Although they later learned that the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, had ordered the suppression of some of the information jurors were required to reveal publicly, they felt he had acted too late. As with many things related to the trial, the beats and even some parameters are written in real time.

Their experiences mirror some of those described by other potential jurors who have been dismissed. One of them, a man who gave his name as Mark to NBC News, said he had “often satirized Mr. Trump in my works” and because of that, he expected not to be chosen.

A woman named Kara, who said the nature of her job made serving extremely difficult, told NBC News she realized the gravity of serving on a criminal jury, but especially this one.

Seeing Trump in person, she said, was “very shocking.” He was, she realized, just “another guy.”

One of the potential jurors who spoke to the Times, the man, did not immediately realize what case he was involved in when he was led into the courtroom on the 15th floor of the courthouse Manhattan Criminal Court. The woman had an idea a week earlier, after reading a news report about the trial beginning the week she was supposed to respond to a jury summons.

The man, sitting a few rows behind the prosecutors’ table as they were part of the first panel of 96 potential jurors brought into the courtroom Monday afternoon, felt a sense of calm about five minutes after being there . Trump was just a defendant, he thought. It was a trial for commercial records. Prosecutors were on one side, defense attorneys on the other.

The woman was struck by the fact that Trump stood and greeted the prospective jurors, she said, as he and his lawyers were introduced to the group. To her, this was more like the behavior of a candidate on the campaign trail than that of an accused. (Trump, of course, is both.)

Both were discouraged by efforts by Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, to gauge potential jurors’ opinions of Trump. The man said Blanche seemed “folksy” in a way he found disingenuous, while the woman was more pointed, describing a “witch hunt” aimed at eliminating people sympathetic to Democrats on the panel – a expression that Trump often uses to criticize the various prosecutors investigating his conduct.

The man in particular was frustrated at being asked about past social media posts in which he criticized Trump, something Blanche’s team had brought up and which Merchan said ultimately meant the man should be excuse.

The man believed he could have been righteous and didn’t like the idea that he couldn’t be. He and the woman, who said they believe in the jury system, noted that they began the day by taking an oath pledging to render a fair and impartial judgment based on the evidence. The man believed that his own opinions – especially those from years ago – had no bearing on his ability to judge the evidence. If anything, he said, he would have been hyper-aware while doing it.

Both had realized the magnitude of what it would mean to be on this jury.

But they were also aware of the threats and backlash that strong evidence against Trump could bring – particularly if their personal data could be traced publicly. And both of them feared being chosen because of this; the man in particular said his wife was worried.

Both would have appreciated participating in this historic trial. But both also felt a sense of relief at not having been chosen.

This article was originally published in The New York Times.