THIS USED TO BE A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT for law students: Is it possible to seat an impartial jury to pass judgment on a former president of the United States? The question is becoming less and less theoretical these days. From the FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that yielded troves of possibly mishandled classified material to the intensifying scrutiny into allegations of election fraud in Georgia and financial misdealings in New York, it's no longer unthinkable that in some court, some day, former President Trump could face a criminal charge.
That would present a singular challenge, given that the U.S. Constitution guarantees every defendant the right to be tried by a jury of their peers. "It would be the ultimate stress test for the American judicial system," says Craig Trocino, director of the Miami Law Innocence Clinic and a former public defender. Agrees Cornell Law Professor Valerie Hans: "In a way, the Founders envisioned the possibility of this kind of event and envisioned the jury as a protection for that defendant."
But who, exactly, could claim to be a "peer" of a wealthy one-time leader of the free world? And who in America-or anywhere else, for that matter-could claim to lack an opinion about someone whose every utterance and action has been daily front-page news for seven years? Could all 160 million Americans who expressed an opinion by voting in the 2020 presidential election be disqualified, and, if so, who would be left?
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