yeah and the jury selected for this corruption trial will have to weigh some of the strongest charges ever leveled against a sitting Federal lawmaker the judge defense attorneys and prosecutors know the importance of sitting the right jurors and asking tough questions to ensure as Brenda mentioned they'll view this case through an impartial and clear lens for more of an inside look at what the process entails I'm joined by someone who's been through a number of jury selections attorney and former Federal prosecutor Brian Whistler Brian thanks for coming back on the show uh so what we know from Brenda Flanigan is that 16 65 perspective jurors were initially uh excused from sitting trial what is the judge looking for what's this selection process about here yeah well the key ingred ingredient is uh there has to be determination rendered as to whether a potential juror can be fair and impartial uh to to both sides right and that's that's a that's a challenging uh standard uh but there's a significant amount of questioning uh that goes into that as you know uh to reach that judgment and U and folks who may not think that they are capable of being impartial sometimes are second guessed by the court uh for their rationale so it's a fairly uh complex process it's a mix of probably Art and Science and picking a jury and I've certainly picked it quite a number in my tenure particularly as a prosecutor um it's a fascinating component of the trial well and so what do you make then of the folks who today claimed you know they quote news junkies they've already read about heard too much about this case they say to be impartial and and does that play into uh what the defense was arguing which was that the prosecutors were tainting the jury pool with some of the court filings yeah fairly Common Place particularly for a high-profile case right uh you know most folks who are watching the news locally are probably catching at least glimpses uh of this of this case in advance but what you read in the media is and the fact that you read of a case is not a per se kind of bar to serving on a jury the question comes back to well did your read of certain information Prejudice you to such an extent that you can't be impartial and that's and that's the question that is scrutinized if if a News Junkie says well I just I just know too much I've been in courts where the judge has said well are you able to set aside what may have been reported by the press and just focus on the facts as presented by both parties so uh it's it's a multi- multi-layered process and it it seems anyway from the transcripts the court transcripts that the judge is in fact pressing some of those folks or at least setting them aside to still be uh perspective candidates um what do you make Brian of some of the questionnaires that were given out initially about uh potential jurors feelings on whether people from New Jersey or are more likely to uh commit a corrupt act or how they feel about someone who keeps large amounts of cash in their home are these common questions yeah I think generally speaking they are in the sense that what you want to get at is just a as complete a picture as you can of a profile of a juror and that's not only for the judge to review but also the parties because as you probably know in federal court uh by law the parties are given preemptory strikes they're also permitted to attempt to strike a jur for cause so that kind of information in terms of what biases an individual potential juror might carry into the courtroom is really important for for the judge and the and the and the council to to know up front uh just to clarify also there's no timeline on this right I mean the judge can take as long as he needs to find the right members for this jury yeah that's quite right and and I I've been in courts where it's taken over a week to pick a jury and I've been in courtrooms where it's taken day and some of that is determined by uh a lot actually a lot of that is determined by the discretion of the judge so a lot of Judges feel very confident in their judgments about potential jurors other judges will defer more to counsel uh in that process so a lot of it does depend on on on the particular judge uh but it certainly it's there's no legal prescription for how long uh is required to pick a jury that is correct Brian Whistler thanks for the perspective great to see you B [Music]