The Trump jury is out

The seven men and five women on the Trump jury have an historic time ahead of them. Whatever they decide it will be historic, although a guilty fnding would obviously be more dramatically historic than an acquittal. This is going to weigh on their minds. Even though the judge will expect them to come to their decision based on the evidence alone, it wll be almost impossible. The defendant is Donald Trump for heaven's sake, you can't get a bigger elephant in the room than The Donald. So each member of the jury panel will not only be thinking about the evidence but the reality of deciding whether the former president and now Republican nominee for the presidency can actually be found guilty. There will be some on the jury, probably the foreman and others with strong views who will try their best to persuade the rest that they shouldn't think of the defendant as Trump but merely as the defendant. Again, that will be impossible. However, if the evidence is as good as the prosecution hopes it is, then they will have little choice but to convict Trump, possibly on all 34 charges. But Trump's lawyers have painted the prosecution's main witness, Michael Cohen, as a serial liar, and that description may be enough to cause doubt in the jury's mind. Doubt means an acquittal. And jury members worried about being known for ever for finding the former president guilty might be privately relieved.