Consider This from NPR - What will life look like for jurors after the Trump trial?

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

The 12 New Yorkers who served on the jury for former president Donald Trump's trial, and voted to convict him om 34 counts of falsified business records, have not had their identities disclosed publicly to protect their privacy.But now the trial is over, and they are likely returning back to normal life. So, will they reveal themselves to the public? And what risks do they encounter in doing so?In this episode we take a look at what other public figures who have gone up against Trump have faced from his supporters, and what those jurors could stand to gain from sharing their stories.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

When former President Donald Trump spoke publicly about his felony conviction last week, he painted himself as a beleaguered public servant. It's my honor to be doing this. It really is. It's a very unpleasant thing, to be honest. But it's a great, great honor. It's funny, with that quote, he's describing how a lot of Americans feel about jury duty. And in the case of the 12 New Yorkers who voted to convict Trump on 34 counts of falsified business records, their lives might get especially unpleasant now that the trial is over. Trump has not directly attacked the jury, but his supporters across social media have, threatening everything from doxing to death. After the trial, Trump did imply that the jury pool in left-leaning Manhattan was biased against him. They wouldn't give us a venue change. We were at 5% or 6% in this district, in this area.

In part due to safety concerns, the identities of the jurors were not disclosed publicly. And there's a long list of Americans who, in the course of doing their jobs, have upset Trump and been threatened or harassed by his supporters. Like Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows, a Democrat. She removed Trump from the Republican presidential primary ballot, which she said state law required her to do. Politics and my personal views played no role. I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and that is what I did. Eventually, that decision was reversed by the Supreme Court. Before that happened, she told NPR her house was swatted,

targeted by a hoax 911 call. I stand by doing my job, but the response, the threats of violence and threatening communications have been unacceptable. Consider this. The New Yorkers who convicted Donald Trump are still anonymous, at least for now. What will their lives look like after this blockbuster trial? From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Consider This from NPR. Here's a quote. You were engaged in a very stressful and difficult task.

Some parting words there from Judge Juan Merchan thanking the jury in Trump's hush money trial. Now they've delivered their historic guilty verdict and can return to their regular lives. So, as a classic song once asked, is that all there is? Now that it's all over, will the jurors reveal their identities, get exposed by someone else, or just fade back into the fabric of civilian life? And if they speak, what might they say? Social psychologist Julie Blackman has often explored these questions in her work on high-profile criminal cases. Good to have you here, Julie. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

These jurors were not sequestered during the six-week trial, but their transition back to normal life is undoubtedly going to take time. What can you tell us about what these 12 people are likely going through right now? The transition back has got to be substantial, right? Especially to the extent that they kept themselves separate from information. They're instructed by the court at the beginning of the trial. And throughout the trial, they're regularly instructed to stay off the internet, to avoid any information that's relevant to the trial at hand. And so one of the things you would expect they would be doing at this point, assuming that they'd followed that instruction, is checking to see what was happening during the course of the trial, to try to re-establish themselves, in a sense, in the world of news about this case.

If one or more of these 12 people were to approach you and say, hmm, I'm torn, should I disclose my participation in this trial or not? What would you advise them? It's a hard question. I mean, in some respects, I'm very eager to hear from the jurors, in particular because Trump has derided the process. He's talked about it as rigged. And the ultimate proof that it was not is hearing from jurors who say, I was there, I was in the room, and I'm willing to kind of pierce the black box of juror deliberations to sort of describe our process and to say that we

were fair, we were mindful of the evidence, we asked questions that demonstrated that our process in the jury room was consistent with all that. And what Judge Merchan said to them at the end was, he said, no one can make you do anything that you don't want to do. The choice is yours. And I would actually expect that during this time, just after trial, that one of the things that's happening for these jurors is a kind of weighing of whether or not it makes sense for them to come forward. People associated with the criminal and civil trials of Donald Trump, from court officials to witnesses, have been doxxed pretty often. What are the chances that somebody is going to be either exposed against their will or choose to step forward and then

face an onslaught of harassment online or in real life? I think people will not be exposed against their will. I mean, I think that the attorneys understand their obligation to keep the jurors' names private. They did have access. They had their names. No one else did, but the trial teams did. If jurors choose to come forward, I think that one of the things they're going to have to reckon with is the likelihood that they will be doxed or that there'll be other harassing events that occur. And it's already the case that people who have been participants in trials have been heavily doxed. I actually have an article coming out in a journal called The Champion, where my co-author, Dawn Hughes, talks about having testified at the trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. She testified as an expert witness

for Amber Heard and was crazily doxxed by Johnny Depp followers to the point where she really had to reach out to the FBI for some protection while she was a witness at the trial. So we know that trial participants are vulnerable. And of course, that's frightening for democracy and for the protection of the justice system. If you had a chance to speak to one of these jurors, what's the question that you most would like answered? Oh, what a good question. I mean, I think I would most want to hear about how deliberations began. What was the idea that first rose to the surface where people attached themselves to that idea, revealed some measure of agreement with that idea, and deliberations began? And of course, when attorneys are giving summations, you want to know when you've given a summation,

do your ideas carry over into the jury room? Do they dominate deliberations? And if so, how? Serving on a jury is always a form of public service, whether it's a day or a month, high profile or low profile. But how would you describe the sacrifice that people make, the service that people give to be part of a jury like this? Second to military service, there's nothing more we ask of our fellow citizens than jury service. And to be willing to serve in this trial at this time with knowledge of things like doxing and to be grateful that we have the kind of system where people will do that. And Judge Marchand actually did an unusual thing at the beginning of jury selection, which is

he said to the assembled group, if there's anyone here who doesn't want to serve, raise your hand for any reason at all. And that cleared about half the room. And that's an unusual way to begin jury selection. Usually the process is more individual and each person is talked to separately. Here, they were addressed as a group, half of them left, and the remainder, they were the people who were prepared to take this on, who were prepared to sort of act on behalf of our country, of the state, and show up in court every day on time, and were prepared to take the risks that they surely knew attended this process and deliver a verdict. And that's brave and noble and so important to our democracy.

Julie Blackman is a social psychologist who has worked as a trial strategy consultant on many high-profile criminal cases. Thank you for talking with us today. My pleasure. This episode was produced by Catherine Fink, Connor Donovan, and Erica Ryan with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro. It was edited by Patrick Jaron Watanon and Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

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