The first of four criminal trials involving Donald Trump will begin on Monday 15 April in New York. The trial is the responsibility of the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, and is the first against a former president of the United States. It concerns an alleged payment of 130 thousand dollars to the porn film actress Stormy Daniels, which Trump allegedly made in 2016 through his company and his former lawyer Michael Cohen to buy the actress’s silence about a sexual relationship she had with him about ten years ago. years ago. According to the prosecution, the payment was not accounted for correctly: if found guilty, Trump risks a maximum of four years in prison.
As per practice, in the first phase of the trial – which could last weeks, if not months – the 12 members of the popular jury will be selected, a body made up of ordinary citizens who will have to attend all phases of the trial and finally express a guilty verdict or innocence, based on the evidence and testimony presented. It will then be the actual judiciary (therefore the professional judges) that issues the sentence and decides the punishment.
In Trump’s case, the jury will be made up of US citizens, adults and residents of Manhattan, who speak English and have no criminal record. Court officials will initially randomly select a large group of people who qualify, and everyone will be asked whether they believe they can judge the defendant (Trump) fairly and impartially. To those who answer in the affirmative, the lawyers of both sides will then ask a series of questions to judge their impartiality, on the basis of which the 12 jurors and the six reservists who will make up the popular jury will be chosen.
The identity of the lay judges will not be made public, and while the trial is underway they will not be able to talk to anyone about its developments. The trial will not be televised, but reporters will be able to stand outside the courtroom to try to interview Trump and other people involved.
– Read also: Normal citizens who judge the most serious crimes
Trump was indicted about a year ago, at the end of March 2023, and the trial was supposed to begin on March 25. On March 15, however, a New York judge decided to postpone it to April 15 to allow the defense (and therefore Trump’s lawyers) to study approximately 100 thousand pages of new documents containing information on the case, which had emerged in the previous days.
The postponement was a victory for Trump and his legal team, who have long been trying to postpone the trials as much as possible to ensure that the hearings and any convictions or acquittals do not interfere with the electoral campaign for the presidential elections of next November 5, for which Trump will almost certainly be a candidate with the Republican Party.
– Read also: Joe Biden and Donald Trump have the numbers to obtain the nomination in the US elections
What begins today is one of four criminal trials involving Trump and is currently the only one with a definite start date. In other courts he is accused of trying to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election; of having attempted to change the official results of the presidential elections in the state of Georgia, always with the aim of overturning the overall result; and that he kept some confidential government documents in his villa in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. No one has yet reached the hearing stage.
Tags: criminal trial Donald Trump today
