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A potential juror in former President Donald Trump’s Stormy Daniels ‘hush money’ trial was excused from service after she admitted to concerns about her impartiality upon being officially sworn in by Judge Juan Merchan.
In a recent development inside the New York courtroom, a young nurse, one of the seven jurors who had been preliminarily selected to serve on the jury as of Tuesday, expressed her inability to remain unbiased, Time Magazine reported.
Her concerns were brought to light following inquiries from her friends and family who suspected her role as a juror based on media reports.
“Yesterday alone, I had friends and family push things to me,” she revealed to the court. Expressing a stark acknowledgment of her compromised position, she stated, “I don’t think at this point that I can be fair and unbiased.”
In response to this incident, Judge Merchan lambasted the mainstream media for excessive exposure of juror information. He announced that potential jurors’ places of employment would be removed from the public record and instructed members of the media to refrain from describing jurors’ appearances.
WATCH:
BREAKING: Trump juror sworn in by Judge Merchon comes clean and admits she will **NOT** be fair and impartial. pic.twitter.com/PCiIpkWNoT
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 18, 2024
The day’s proceedings also saw the prosecutors express concerns about another juror, identified through a separate investigation potentially related to a 1990s corruption case. This revelation led to a delay in decision-making regarding the juror’s future participation until they could be questioned directly, CBS News reported.
According to the news outlet, the search for impartial jurors continued on Thursday with a fresh pool of 96 Manhattan residents entering the courtroom. A significant number of these potential jurors, 48 in total, were immediately excused after admitting to biases against the former president. An additional nine were dismissed for undisclosed reasons.
Each side in the case is allowed 10 peremptory challenges, enabling them to excuse a potential juror without explanation, and there are an unlimited number of “for cause” challenges, which call for a person to be excused if there’s a clear conflict. The judge must sign off on the latter.
With a new batch of 96 Manhattanites being considered Thursday, each side has four peremptory challenges remaining. They will also have five more peremptory challenges when choosing the six alternates.
It can be recalled on Monday, one potential juror was brought in for questioning after Trump’s lawyers discovered she posted a pro-Biden celebratory video in 2020.
“You had to get in the car to spread the honking cheer. it’s a full on dance party at 96th street,” the potential juror’s caption read according to Trump attorney Todd Blanche.
President Trump was allegedly gesturing and ‘audibly speaking in the direction of the potential juror’ while she was being questioned about her pro-Biden social media post.
Judge Merchan accused Trump of intimidating the juror.
“I won’t tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear,” Judge Merchan said.
The left-wing, pro-Biden juror claimed she is capable of being impartial.
“I very, very strongly believe that regardless of my thoughts about anyone or anything political, feelings or convictions, that the job of a juror is to understand the facts of a trial and to be the judge of those facts,” the juror said, according to CNN.
Judge Merchan said the left-wing juror gave “reasonable explanations” for the pro-Biden Facebook videos and rejected a request from Trump’s attorneys to dismiss her from the jury pool.
This is a developing story, and we will continue to provide updates as new information becomes available.
The post BREAKING: Juror Admits Bias, Says She Cannot Be Fair and Impartial After Being Sworn in by Judge Merchan (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.