Napolitano tells Newsmax: Jurors in Trump’s N.Y. Case Should Ignore News Coverage

Retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Friday that as friends and family gather on Memorial Day weekend, it will be challenging for jurors in former President Donald Trump’s New York paperwork trial to ignore things they may hear.

“They’re human beings,” Napolitano said on “Wake Up America.” “Every judge gives this admonition every time the jury leaves the courthouse, and every judge thinks to themselves, ‘Hmm, would I follow these rules? Would I never turn on the television, not watch Newsmax?’ I mean, they’re human beings. You walk by a newsstand, you see the headlines in the New York Post. You’re obviously drawn to this stuff.”

“It’s one of the reasons that I’ve been saying that the former president has very astutely, even brilliantly, testified without getting on the witness stand by the comments he makes every time he goes into or leaves the courtroom. Those are arguments – ‘This is the wrong case.’ ‘It shouldn’t be in this courthouse.’ ‘I’m victimized by politics.’ – that his lawyers will not even be able to make to the jury, and he’s making them to the jury. So, you have to rely on jurors who hear this stuff to put it out of their brain and resolve it just on the basis of the evidence.”

Jurors are expected to decide the case on the evidence presented during the trial and not be influenced by media coverage or statements made by figures in the case outside of the official court record. They are also instructed not to speak about the proceedings with others, which Napolitano suggested could be challenging if they attend Memorial Day barbecues or parties over the long weekend.

If the jury comes back with a quick verdict, then “it’s a defense verdict,” Napolitano said, but if the jury takes longer to deliberate, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the verdict is in the prosecution’s favor.

“It could still be a defense verdict if they go through every charge and every piece of evidence methodically,” he said. “It depends upon what their collective mentality is. I’ve been stunned and surprised by how long juries have taken and I have been overwhelmed, happily so, with the thoroughness that some juries have shown.”

With the trial having gone on for weeks, Napolitano said that jury members are probably ready to wrap up the case.

“I think they probably do want to get back to their lives but, theoretically, they have not discussed it with each other and, theoretically, none of them knows how any of the other 11 feels,” he said.

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