Jury experts say it’s more like jury “de-selection,” than selection. Picking a jury is about trying to eliminate potential jurors who might be bad for your side, while leaving the ones who might be favorable. Jury consultant Eric Rudich explains how attorneys try to suss these out. If you have a question about the case you'd like Brian Buckmire to answer in an upcoming episode, leave a voicemail at 929-388-1249. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
This week, jury selection kicked off in the trial of Sean Diddy Combs.
Chapter 2: How does jury selection work in high-profile cases?
The Sean Combs sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York is expected to have a jury seated by Friday. The judge currently has 45 prospective jurors in place. Both the prosecution and defense anticipate the jury will be finalized by the weekend.
We're never really sure how long this jury selection process could take, but the judge has been running a very tight ship, and so we seem to be on track for the trial to start next week. We could hear opening statements as early as Monday, May 12th. This week, we saw dozens of prospective jurors cycle in and out of the courtroom.
They included a massage therapist, a freelance writer, an investment analyst, and a high school wrestling coach, a real cross-section of New Yorkers. One by one, they answered questions from the judge. Questions like, have you listened to podcasts about this case? What social media do you use?
Chapter 3: What types of questions are prospective jurors asked?
Also, questions about whether they think they'll be able to listen to testimony that's sexual in nature, about things the government says are a crime. What's the purpose of these questions? It's to figure out whether the juror can give Sean Combs a fair and impartial trial. Legal minds like me refer to this whole jury selection process as voir dire. It means to speak the truth.
While the courtroom theater has already begun, the government and the defense have been preparing behind the scenes for months. And gaming out jury selection is a crucial step in that preparation. Think about it. The 12 jurors and six alternates who will be seated for this trial are going to hear all of the arguments, listen to all of the witnesses, and see all of the evidence.
This assortment of people will ultimately decide whether Sean Combs is guilty or not. He continues to deny all of the charges against him. So in this episode, we're going to hear from someone who knows a lot about the strategizing that goes into jury selection and how that could play into this case.
I think if you're the defense, you certainly want an individual who has kind of a untraditional sexual lifestyle, for example. Probably someone who hasn't followed the case very closely because I think a lot of the media attention has not been very positive to Sean Combs. For the prosecution, you would want probably the reverse.
Chapter 4: Who is Eric Rudich and what is his role in jury consulting?
This is Bad Rap, the case against Diddy. I'm Brian Buckmeyer, an ABC News legal contributor and practicing attorney. This episode, a good juror. My guest today is Eric Rudich. He's a senior litigation consultant with Blueprint Trial Consulting. His job is to help legal teams prepare for trial, including jury selection. And to be clear, he is not working on Diddy's case.
Now, before we hear my conversation with Eric, I just want to mention that as a former public defender, I've never worked with a jury consultant. This process we're going to describe, it doesn't happen on every case. Actually, far from it. That's because jury consultants are expensive. They typically work on really big cases with really deep pocketed clients.
We know from court records that Combs's lawyers are using a jury consultant and even more rare. So is the prosecution. So I started off by asking Eric about what his job entails. I think a lot of people haven't heard of a jury consultant or at most, maybe they've seen a fictionalized version on TV.
Absolutely. So the show Bull is about a jury consultant, and it certainly is a glamorized view of jury consulting with a lot of technology that you wouldn't be allowed to have in the courtroom. Jury consultants, the work that they do is a lot different than what's portrayed in the media. A lot of what we do is behind the scenes to assist attorneys with
Chapter 5: What factors influence jury consultants when selecting jurors?
developing case strategy, determining what their weaknesses are, how to address those weaknesses, what are the profiles of good and dangerous jurors in this case, what kind of visual evidence will help your case. Another task that jury consultants will do as part of their engagement in a trial like this is do very thorough investigations of prospective jurors.
So we will run background reports on them to determine if they're a registered Democrat or Republican, what their social media presence has been, where they live, their home value. In addition, we're doing a thorough search on their online presence to determine what have they posted, what have they liked. Some people call it cyber-stalking.
We're just doing background information to determine what publicly available information we have on those jurors that might be indicative of whether they're likely to favor the prosecution or Sean Combs in this case.
Let's have a little fun, right? You and I just met a few minutes ago. You know that Brian Buckmeyer is going to walk in as a prospective juror. What are some of the things you're going to try to look into? Where are the avenues where you might look into them, where you would have the ability to tell a client Brian's good for your jury or maybe Brian's not good for your jury?
How do you start that search?
So I'm going to first look at your responses on the juror questionnaire. And then me and my team are going to do a deep dive on your online presence, which I'm sure there is a good amount of. And we're also going to do a deep dive on your personal social media. And we're going to find out, based on your
responses to the questions during voir dire in court, are you the type of juror that's going to closely scrutinize the evidence? Or are you going to be someone who's going to be quick to make decisions?
And I think in your case, because of your education level and because you were a public defender, I think you would be more favorable to the defense just based on your demographics and life experience. Very fair assumption.
Now, do you or jury consultants take like a one size fits all? You say, OK, this is an assault case, so we're going to do it this way. This is a rape case. We're going to do it this way. This is a murder case. Is that kind of how that works?
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Chapter 6: How are mock trials used in jury consulting?
Now you use the word test the case. And for whatever reason, that kind of brought me back to law school, the fun parts I remember where we did mock trials, where we did like an exhibition of what a trial would look like with fake jurors and a fake defendant and a fake case. Are you doing mock trials with some of your clients to show them how to do this?
Absolutely. And that's an important aspect of our work as jury consultants is to test our clients' cases and do mock trials. We're using or working with actual individuals in the trial venue who could be prospective jurors in this case. Of course, they're not jurors. And this is all done well in advance of trial. But typically, a mock trial is one or two or even three days.
And so we would have a recruiter, similar to a focus group, come and recruit, let's say, 30 or 40 or even more people to arrive at the exercise. And the individuals would be paid for their time. And they come from all walks of life. And so they might be the person who works at a bodega. It might be a secretary. It might be a teacher.
And the idea is to get a representative sample like you would in a trial jury. But we're looking to see how someone who might be a juror on this case who has similar demographic and characteristics and attitudes and experiences of a prospective juror might react to the case.
Well, if you ever need an ABC legal contributor and you put me up at a hotel, I'm happy to be part of this focus group for a couple of days. I'll let you know our daily rate and you can see if it works for you.
Exactly.
Now, there's been a lot of talk about questionnaires. And in this case, there is a 31-question questionnaire that went out to the prospective jurors before they even got into the court. What stood out to you? Also, what would you give in the questionnaire, like an A plus, or what would you say this could have been worked on a little bit better?
And then ultimately, how do you think it does in terms of picking a good juror?
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Chapter 7: What traits do attorneys look for in a juror?
So the questionnaire focuses a lot on hardship and bias, which of course it should. Overall, I'd give the juror questionnaire a B because I think there could be a lot more information included in the juror questionnaire about individuals' attitudes particularly, but it certainly works for the court to determine whether or not someone could be potentially biased.
Important question is what they've heard about the case, if they formed any opinions about the case that indicate that it may not be a fair and impartial juror on this particular case. There are questions about whether they've been a victim of sexual assault. There are also questions about whether they've been accused of sexually assaulting individuals.
So there are questions on there to uncover whether someone is potentially, their experiences indicate that they may be biased and may not be a fair and impartial juror in this case.
Now, just to be clear to our listeners, you are not working on the Diddy case. And based on my understanding and being in the court, there is a jury consultant there. And so let's kind of put you into that role there. Sean Combs has now hired you or the SDNY has now hired you.
If you were working on this case on either side, what would be the sort of profile that you're looking for for the type of juror in the Sean Combs case?
For the defense, I would be particularly concerned about individuals who have been victims of sexual assault. And there are probably a number of individuals who say that they were victims, but can still be fair and impartial in this case. You certainly want an individual who has kind of a untraditional sexual lifestyle, for example.
Probably someone who hasn't followed the case very closely, because I think a lot of the media attention has not been very positive to Sean Combs. Someone who's not had very favorable experiences with law enforcement. For the prosecution, you would want probably the reverse.
You would want people who have much more traditional sexual lifestyle, maybe individuals who follow the case closely, who've started to form some opinions. Maybe you've seen the Cassandra video, individuals who have positive views of law enforcement.
I would want to know if anyone has been accused of committing a crime or have had negative experiences with law enforcement or mistrustful of prosecutors. So those are just a few of the characteristics I think each side will be looking for when they're selecting the jury in this case.
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