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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Rough jury pool. 75.36% for Trump in the latest election, and one presumes a lot of energy sector employment.

Maybe? The judge, and the lawyers involved have the right to reject jurors that might prejudice a trail.

Yes, but that's a lot easier to manage in a county that doesn't have only 30k people in it.

They applied for change of venue 3 times, lost all 3 times, and appealed it to the north dakota supreme court, and lost there too.

Overall, they could not make the showing necessary.

I read the motions and responses, and was not particularly impressed with their arguments for change of venue.

Lawyers don't have unlimited removals though.

Not peremptory strikes, but you have unlimited removals for cause (and admittedly a steep appellate hill to climb if they’re unfairly denied)

You're gonna have a hell of a time construing a quality (energy sector or few steps removed employment) as "cause" when it's applicable to a large minority if not majority of the jury pool.

The judge might allow it, but the odds are long and the next judge will certainly allow an appeal on those grounds so you probably don't even gain much except time.

It’s actually not that uncommon to lose a ton of people for cause in cases that are a good fit for a transfer of venue motion. But of course it does come down to the trial judge. I don’t understand who this “next judge” is that you’re referring to.

>I don’t understand who this “next judge” is that you’re referring to.

If you do something slimy like dismiss a huge fraction of the juror pool because you don't like their demographics (vs for example having to dismiss the half of the population that had their opinion biased by the news or some other non-slimy reason to cause the same outcome) there will be an appeal and that appeal will be presided over by a judge.

That's not how jury selection works. You never have enough peremptory strikes to "dismiss a huge fraction of the jury pool."

North Dakota voted 67% overall for Trump, this is not too far from being representative of the general population. Considering that anyone who is openly hostile against energy companies is going to be removed during selection I don’t see the jury as the issue.

Edit: and considering this was the Southwest district, looking at results by county, 75% seems about right. This isn’t necessarily a biased jury in the sense that selection was unfair, this is probably the makeup you’d get with a fair selection. https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/north-dako...

People can hide their biases (or claim they can set them aside, which will often be acceptable during jury selection), and in a county with 30k people you're gonna run into people who recognize you at the grocery store a lot. This certainly wouldn't have been a pressure-free scenario.

It can be quite hard to get a jury to go against a locally powerful large employer in a small town.

Did you feel that the jury in New York City (76% voted for Biden in 2020) that convicted Trump of falsifying business records similarly corrupt?

lol, nothing to do with Biden - Trump soiled his brand in NYC over 4+ decades of screwing people over, not paying bills around town, "strategic bankruptcies" etc.

It's telling that "trump" buildings rebranded in NYC...

NYC has a… slightly larger population to pull from, which makes the chances of being recognized at the store quite a bit lower.

Convicting Trump doesn't throw half of NYC onto the dole, either.

My comment was flagged. But, basic assumption should not be that Trump voters and Biden ones are symmetrical.

One group finds candidate who defrauds more then any other politician before appealing and right kind manly. They see him sexually harassing women appealing. Moreover all fascists vote for Trump. Both sides have bad people in ... but Trump side is defined by them.

There is no symetry here. This particular choice is literally showing that yes, you are more likely to be unfair kind of juror.

Any argument that attempts to sound serious but includes "Moreover all fascists vote for Trump" has disqualified itself.

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