CNN legal analyst Elie Honig had a message for alternate jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump: Be ready to serve. (Watch the video below.)
Honig told Anderson Cooper that the maximum of six alternate jurors should be chosen because he would “bet” that one or two jurors will drop out.
A 12-person jury was finalized Thursday along with one alternate after two jurors who had been seated earlier were dismissed.
Honig suggested that the roster of reserves be beefed up to the maximum.
“The law says you can have up to six. I think in this case, I would want all six because, look, we lost two seated jurors today,” Honig said. “Now, it gets harder legally, once the jury is sworn in, it gets much harder for a judge to release a juror. But jurors get sick. Jurors get freaked out. Some of them could be spooked by a social media post. So, they’re gonna need all six.”
Honig shrugged off concerns that the case would cycle through all six alternates for a possible mistrial, but he felt confident that a few may be called into action.
“I would bet we’re going to lose one or two along the way,” he said. “Whether someone gets COVID, someone sees something on the news that they’re not supposed to see — jurors do drop out once in a while.”
Two originally seated jurors were struckbecause one doubted that she could be unbiased amid concerns about being publicly identified and prosecutors raised concerns that the other may not have been truthful on the questionnaire.
The former president is said by some to be engaging in jury intimidation, so that might contribute to juror attrition as well.
Trump is accused of falsifying records to cover up hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels over their alleged affair before the 2016 election.
