Trump on trial: Why jury selection should take longer in Georgia

The Trump trial in New York is expected to last six to eight weeks. Fulton prosecutors estimated their election case would take roughly four months to try in court and require testimony from about 150 witnesses. That doesn’t include time for the defense to cross-examine witnesses and make their case.

A major hurdle to selecting jurors in the YSL trial was its anticipated length, from six months to one year, which presented a hardship for hundreds of people with work and other commitments.

Attorney Jeff Douglass, who heads litigation at Morris Manning & Martin, said the charges that Trump faces in Manhattan aren’t as complicated as those brought against him under Georgia’s racketeering law. He said the Trump case in Atlanta “will be a little more of an apples-to-apples comparison to what we’ve been seeing in the YSL case.”

In that case, “you have a number of defendants, you’ve got these incredibly complex claims, and you’ve got a trial that’s expected to last a very long time,” he said.

“I think that in the Trump RICO case in Georgia, you are going to see some of the same issues that we saw in the YSL jury selection,” Douglass said. “It will be interesting to see if Judge McAfee takes anything away from how it was done in the YSL case.”

Jennings, whose specialties include white-collar crime, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Manhattan trial takes longer than expected, as Trump is far from a typical defendant.

“I suspect that there might be some twists or turns in the case,” he said. “Already the court has had to schedule a hearing regarding potential gag-order violations by the defendant.”

Jury selection process

One thing that sped up selection in New York was the judge’s decision to allow dozens of jurors to opt out without much questioning.

In the first group of 96 jurors who entered the courtroom, for instance, about half raised their hands when asked if they could not be impartial in weighing the case against the former president. They were dismissed.

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