Is it impossible for Trump to get an impartial jury in the hush money case? Lawyers face monumental task in selecting 12 New Yorkers for Stormy Daniels case

Of the 1.4 million adults who live in Manhattan, it would be nearly impossible to find one who doesn’t already have an opinion about Donald Trump.

But twelve of them will be selected to ultimately decide his fate as the first former president to face a criminal trial that begins Monday.

They will be selected from among hundreds of eligible New Yorkers to sit in the landmark case, in which Trump is accused of concealing a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about their alleged 2006 affair .

If found guilty by the group of his peers, he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison for a saga that began 18 years ago and has seen wall-to-wall press coverage not just in the Big Apple, but around the world .

Will it be impossible to find a dozen people who don’t already have a prejudiced view of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee? Experts who specialize in jury selection tell DailyMail.com it could be.

Selecting an impartial and unbiased panel in a scandal of such enormous publicity — and in a city made up mostly of Democrats — is a monumental task for the court and could take anywhere from five days to two weeks.

The jury will consist of people who live in Manhattan, can speak English, are US citizens and have not been convicted of a crime.

Both sides want New Yorkers who can both help and listen to their case, but who are not biased and may have already drawn conclusions.

During the arduous process that starts Monday morning, the judge will ask each potential member 42 questions out loud.

Topics range from their career and family life to which news networks they watch and whether they have been a member of a political organization.

After that, there will be follow-up questions and the attorneys from each side will have a limited opportunity to challenge the jury pool.

Lawyers will have a chance to dismiss jurors and pepper them with questions before they are allowed to sit in the trial, which could last up to six weeks.

“I think the biggest challenge is going to be for judges and lawyers to figure out who is being deceptive and who isn’t,” Margaret Bull Kovera, a psychology professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the DailyMail. com.

“These are the type of cases where people can lie to get in or out of the jury.”

She said there is a possibility that a juror could try to be selected based solely on the chance of finding Trump guilty or acquitting him, without even hearing the evidence.

They may also see it as an opportunity to sell their story despite the threat of anger from members of the public who disagree with the verdict.

“The potential for prejudice is significant,” Cornell University Law Professor Valerie Hans told DailyMail.com.

‘Jurors may have already formed an opinion about the case based on what they have heard from their favorite media; therefore it becomes important to find out what these opinions are and whether they prevent people from being fair and impartial.’

The potential jurors Trump’s legal team and the Manhattan prosecutor will be looking for will be opposites.

Hans said Trump’s team will look for conservatives who have supported him in the past and believe the prosecution is politically motivated.

Since he was first indicted, the 77-year-old billionaire, who made his name in Manhattan as a real estate mogul, has maintained that he is the victim of a witch hunt.

Meanwhile, prosecutors want jurors who are open-minded, can follow the case and identify as Democrats.

Renato Stabile, a lawyer who does jury consulting, told DailyMail.com that both sides are likely to be stuck with jurors they don’t want, but the aim is to avoid the ‘extremes’.

‘The judge has already said he will apologize to anyone who says they can’t be fair. Basically, the door opens to anyone who wants to go,’ he said.

“The parties must wonder about the people who stay and why they stay.

‘Many potential jurors will be dismissed because of what they’ve already heard and the feelings they already have about Donald Trump.’

He believes that Trump’s team will look for people who are not interested in politics.

Their ideal candidates will be wealthier jurors who can recognize that he would be good with their finances.

“Young, affluent, single, professional men, possibly in finance with an active social life, who can see the underlying facts as a shock, and either have personal experience or know someone who has,” would be good prospects for the defense, said he .

“Also, people who have been mistreated by law enforcement or the criminal justice system and have a negative and skeptical view of prosecutors and courts.

‘Alternatively, a mix of people who might not be able to agree.

‘The goal is probably a hung jury, as a full acquittal will be difficult in Manhattan.’

The process of selecting a jury will be “difficult” given the extensive press coverage, Kovera said.

She also believes that finding a completely impartial jury will be a tough task due to the ‘full saturation’ of potential members.

‘There is nowhere they can go to avoid it. So what do you do?

‘Well, the next best thing is to look for a place that has a large number of people that they can call.

“Your chances of finding 12 people who can be fair and impartial are better in Manhattan.

“If they wanted to move the case to another county in New York, you get into smaller communities that will have fewer people in their jury pool.”

Trump has tried to switch venues to Staten Island, the only New York borough that overwhelmingly voted for him in 2020.

It was one of the many legal measures that the judge rejected in the build-up to the case.

He believes he cannot get a fair trial because more than 70 percent of Manhattan residents register as Democrats.

‘There is no perfect place, but this is more of a “when” problem than a “where” problem.’ Stabil said.

But he doesn’t think Trump’s claim that he can’t get a fair trial carries much weight.

‘The fairest thing could be to complete the trial after the elections in November 2024.

‘If Trump loses the election, the outcome of this trial has less far-reaching implications and the danger of activist jurors is less.

‘If he wins, it causes other problems, but we end up there with the other criminal cases anyway, so delaying the trial until after the election would be a reasonable compromise.’

Now that the location of the trial is set in stone, lawyers will have to navigate concerns about jurors’ impartiality in court.

Lawyers will have to sift through hundreds of candidates and try to spot any liars as they go through the lengthy selection process.

“Lie detection is a very difficult proposition according to the research,” Kovera added.

‘People think they can do it pretty well. So they are actually relying on cues that are not indicators of deception.’

This means that the pitch of a potential juror’s voice, inconsistencies in their story, or even fidgeting can be critical.

Kovera said that if she had been advising the legal teams, she would have done community survey work to see what arguments would work on different types of people.

“The problem with biases is that they are very difficult to overcome,” Stabile said.

‘People tend to change their decision-making to match their worldview.

“They will see the evidence through the lens of their bias, and in this case they will be very strong.”