August 23, 2018--Trump Jurer

One thing many thought about as the Manafort jury's deliberations dragged into a fourth day was concern that one or more jurors were such fervent Trump supporters that no matter how overwhelming the evidence of Manafort's guilt there would be no verdict, no guilty verdict. The jury would be hung on all 18 counts. 

It turns out that this concern was well founded. It almost happened. But nonetheless, Trump's former campaign manager was found guilt on eight counts.

Unless you take an occasional surreptitious peek at Fox News to see what they are up to (I do), how they are spinning things, you would have missed what a Manafort juror of the concerning type had to say about their deliberations. Particularly how, in spite of driving to the courthouse in Alexandria every morning, wearing her Make America Great hat, conflicted as to whether or not she should hold out to the very bitter end in spite of the accumulating evidence that point to Manafort's guilt, in spite of this, she voted guilty on those eight counts. And likely would have found him guilty on the ten others but didn't "need" to as there was another Trump juror who did hold out for a not guilty verdict and thus there was a hung jury on the other counts.

The juror, Paula Duncan, interviewed on Fox said--

"Finding Mr. Manafort guilty was hard for me. I wanted him to be innocent, I really wanted him to be innocent, but he wasn't. That's the part of a juror. You have to have due diligence and deliberate and look at the evidence and come up with an informed and intelligent decision, which I did."

As scary as the prospect is of a stealth Trumpian on this and upcoming juries (there are a lot of them across America--perhaps a third of the adult population), imperfect as it is, in spite of the relentless incitement emanating from Fox and other media sources, the system such as it is can work. There is something almost sacred to many when one enters the jury room to deliberate. Paula Duncan is a living example.

Paula Duncan