Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says the trial of former President Donald Trump can’t wait until media publicity passes.
“An indefinite adjournment is inappropriate,” prosecutors argued, noting that it was the defense’s eighth attempt to delay the trial.
Defense attorneys had argued that the publicity surrounding the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president—set to start on April 15—would make seating an impartial jury impossible.
Prosecutors countered that the jury questioning process is meant to seat an impartial jury and that President Trump’s “own incessant rhetoric is generating significant publicity.”
“It would be perverse to reward defendant with an adjournment based on media attention he is actively seeking,” the new filing reads, claiming that the defense is seeking an “open-ended delay of the trial.”
The district attorney is prosecuting President Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records, allegedly connected to a scheme to influence the 2016 elections.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case, rejected similar arguments earlier this year and has criticized the defense for “repeatedly” seeking to delay the case.
President Trump is facing four criminal indictments in separate jurisdictions. Last year, the district attorney indicated that the Manhattan case could be delayed because of the other case schedules.
However, several appeals, including an upcoming review at the Supreme Court, have delayed some of the other cases. On Feb. 15, Justice Merchan held a status conference hearing and affirmed a March 25 trial date for President Trump, although he later delayed it to April 15 because of late discovery productions.
During the February hearing, the judge was dismissive of a request to delay the trial based on publicity, finding no reason to believe that there would be less publicity if the trial date were to be changed.
Prosecutors argued that recent reporting “actually confirms that this Court will be able to find 12 impartial jurors (and alternates) in Manhattan.”
New York Voters
The defense argued that New York County voters have shown partiality for or against the former president through the ballots that they cast. Prosecutors argued that this was not the case.A vote for or against him in 2016 or 2020 says nothing about their impartiality “in a 2024 criminal trial involving one of those candidates,” prosecutors claimed.
“Such opinions are not, by themselves, disqualifying,” they argued, noting that the “sheer size” of the county makes it likely that an impartial jury can be seated when the trial begins on April 15.
The court will give the prosecutors and defense altogether 30 minutes for the first round of interviewing each panel of jurors, and 20 minutes for subsequent rounds.
The defense had also commissioned a survey of New York County residents about their awareness of the case, and prosecutors noted that the numbers were high in Manhattan.
A majority of 51 percent of Manhattan residents said they could “definitely” be fair and impartial, and 19 percent said they could “probably” be fair or impartial. Only about 20 percent of those surveyed from any borough said they could not be fair or impartial.
The prosecutors said they had “serious doubts about the reliability of the survey” because they had not seen the methodology used to collect responses.
“It is absurd for defendant to assert that it will be impossible or even impractical to find a dozen fair and impartial jurors, plus alternates, among more than a million people,” prosecutors argued.
“Just as politicians cannot selectively pick which votes to count, defendant cannot rely on parts of the survey to claim that Manhattan residents have ‘overwhelming bias.’”
Courts usually scrutinize pretrial publicity in cases of violent and gruesome crimes, which was not the issue at hand, prosecutors noted.
Claims of Bias
Prosecutors also used the court filing as an opportunity to push back on claims of bias that the defense has lodged in recent correspondence with the court.Defense attorneys have argued that Justice Merchan should recuse himself because he has made small-dollar donations to President Trump’s political opponents and his daughter heads a marketing firm that has received millions of dollars from those campaigning against the former president.
They also argued that the district attorney has made statements that they claim point toward prejudging the defendant.
The district attorney argued that the judge had already reviewed these arguments previously and found them improper.
The judge decided that the district attorney was doing his public duty when he held a press conference after President Trump’s arraignment to tell the public what charges were brought and why.
The defense also criticized the district attorney for bringing up “sex crimes” in an interview with CNBC about the case because President Trump was not charged with such.
“The District Attorney was merely listing examples of other cases where the office had charged defendants with falsifying business records. He was not implying that defendant had committed any sex crimes in the instant case,” prosecutors argued.
They also pushed back on the accusation that they had used “strategic leaks” to the media to prejudice the public against President Trump, arguing that the defense showed “no basis whatsoever” for this.
Prosecutors also took the opportunity to criticize the defense for mentioning the judge’s family, describing it as “reckless and beyond the pale” and “dangerous.”
Defense attorneys have maintained that the prosecutors provided no evidence that President Trump’s speech constituted a threat, but the judge has sided with prosecutors and expanded the gag order to cover his family members.
