'Plant landmines': Experts worry about impact of 2 jurors selected in Trump's trial

The selection of two attorneys to sit on the jury as Donald Trump is being prosecuted on 34 felony counts in a Manhattan courtroom is raising the eyebrows of some trial experts who stress it could have a major impact when it comes time to arrive at a verdict.

With the total of seated jury members down to five after two were dismissed on Thursday morning, one of the remaining jurors is a civil litigator at a high-end law firm while the other is a corporate lawyer with a background in business start-ups and raising capital.

According to a report from Politico, the inclusion of those two — if they are the only two attorneys who make the final cut — will likely lead to their fellow jurors leaning heavily on them when it comes to explaining the laws, as well as the nuances involved at arriving at a final conclusion.

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Noting that Donald Trump's legal team will likely center their defense strategy on simplifying the case, Betty Dunkum, a Florida-based trial consultant, suggested, "I’m sure the team is going to have a story to tell in defense of Donald Trump. But if the story is going to involve a lot of technical issues, and possibly legal issues involving the jury instructions and things like that, then you might want someone who’s going to take a more highly technical view of the case.”

Dunkum added, "I typically don’t leave lawyers on a panel unless I’m one thousand percent confident that they would lean toward my client, because they will have such a strong leadership position in a jury."

Politico's Betsy Woodruff Swan explained, "Lawyers — or aspiring ones — can also plant landmines by misinstructing their fellow jurors."

"In run-of-the-mill cases, both prosecutors and defense teams often weed out fellow lawyers from the jury pool — or even prospective jurors with lawyers in their families. A common worry is that people with legal expertise will do their own legal analysis, rather than following the judge’s instructions," Woodruff Swan elaborated.

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