Attorneys summing up arguments in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial face a surprising but pivotal task as they lay out their cases for finding the former president guilty or not guilty, a jury expert said Tuesday.
Jury consultant Melissa Gomez appeared on CNN Tuesday afternoon as Manhattan District Attorney's office prosecutor Joshua Steinglass outlined his argument — that Trump falsified business records to conceal hush money paid to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 presidential election — to 12 New Yorkers tasked with issuing a verdict in the case.
Steinglass spoke to the jurors for nearly two hours before taking a quick break and a promise of more to come, a surprise to anchor Wolf Blitzer.
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"The number one rule is 'Thou shall not bore the jury,'" Blitzer noted. "But are both teams in danger of breaking that rule with these hours long summations?"
"There could be some trouble with that," Gomez replied. "They're not going to be compelled by something that they were asleep during."
Gomez argued both Steinglass and Trump's lead attorney Todd Blanche needed reminding that "everybody was there" during the trial, but then explained a noteworthy reason why both men may have chosen to be so thorough.
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"[Closing arguments] are very important for a couple of reasons and some may be surprising," she said.
Gomez first explained two less surprising object for the attorneys: the first being to provide a contextual story for the evidence and the second to build a roadmap toward answering the actual questions on the verdict form,
The jury consultant then dug into "what's really important:" the fact that the lawyers cannot follow the juries into deliberations.
"What they need to do is use that closing argument to provide the ammunition, to provide the argument for those jurors who already believe in their side," Gomez explained.
"They need to make sure that they've provided the jurors who believed in their side of the case what they need to fight for them in the deliberation room."
Watch the full segment below or click here.
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