MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell makes a good point about the extremely low probability that Donald Trump will get a fair trial in Washington, D.C. He doesn’t use the term “fair trial” and he doesn’t seem to mind, but that is the point he’s making.
But he overstates dramatically. After pointing out that of 700,000 people in D.C., only 676 voters voted for Donald Trump, O’Donnell states:
The odds of one of the 676 Republicans who did vote for Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. yesterday ending up on his jury there are worse than your odds with any lottery ticket you could buy anywhere.
Do you see the problem? There are a few. The big one, of course, is that 676 out of 700,000 is approximately 1 in 1,000. Let’s make it exact. It’s 1 in 1,036. There are many, many lotteries with worse odds. In fact, all of them have worse odds, if we’re talking about the lotteries with prizes greater than, to pick a number not at random, $1,000 in return for a $1 ticket.
There are other more-minor problems. I’ll mention two.
First, there are just shy of 700,000 people living in D.C. Probably, no more than 500,000 of them, and probably even fewer, are eligible to serve on a jury. So that makes Trump’s odds better than O’Donnell says, although still grim. Let’s pick the 500,000 number. So Trump’s odds are 1 in 740.
Second, I don’t think O’Donnell understands the idea of people acting on principle. I can certainly imagine a Trump voter voting to convict Trump once the judge has laid out the instructions to the jury. That would make Trump’s odds worse than 1 in 740, although, of course, it doesn’t rescue O’Donnell’s absurd claim. But I can also imagine that there are principled people among Democratic jurors who would, following a judge’s instructions to the jury, vote to find Trump not guilty. That would, of course, make Trump’s odds somewhat better.
The bottom line: Trump cannot get a fair trial, but O’Donnell badly exaggerated how unfair it would be. It’s too bad O’Donnell didn’t consult his colleague Rachel Maddow, who I hear is smart.
READER COMMENTS
Robert Simmons
Mar 6 2024 at 4:15pm
The odds of winning a payout from Mega Millions are about 1 out of 24. If he meant to include all payouts, even the smallest one that is under $10, he’s right.
David Henderson
Mar 6 2024 at 6:42pm
You can certainly find examples like that.
But read his statement. He’s still not right. All you need to show him wrong is one counterexample. There are lotteries where the probability of a payout is less than 1 in 1036.
Laurentian
Mar 6 2024 at 5:23pm
So the fact that the main opposition candidate can’t get a fair trial is taken as a given. Isn’t that worrisome?
Or are we adopting the notion that unfair trials are okay as long as they target “reactionaries”? I mean that strategy was a catastrophic failure in the English Civil War, French Revolution, Soviet Russia, Communist China, etc. So it will work this time!
David Henderson
Mar 6 2024 at 6:43pm
You wrote:
Yes, which is part of why I wrote the post.
Craig
Mar 7 2024 at 8:43am
“So the fact that the main opposition candidate can’t get a fair trial is taken as a given. Isn’t that worrisome?”
And Haley’s sole Republican primary victory was in the regime’s Capital City. The left convicts Trump, the right lionizes him. May he be Augustulus! #nationaldivorce
BC
Mar 8 2024 at 11:28am
Haley won in Vermont too.
MarkW
Mar 6 2024 at 9:07pm
but only as a result of a balanced application of the law
As far as Trump is concerned, it’s too late for that. All of these cases are examples of ‘show me the man, and Ill find you the crime’. That doesn’t mean that there are no crimes (ham sandwiches and all that), but none of these prosecutions would have happened except as attempts to ‘get’ Trump. I really hate being on his side in anything, but his political enemies are often worse. It’s sad situation.
Richard Fulmer
Mar 6 2024 at 10:25pm
Agreed. This isn’t going to end well.
steve
Mar 6 2024 at 11:58pm
By the same logic, Trump could not get a fair trial in an area that overwhelmingly voted for him. He cant get a fair trial if the judge is one he named or any other GOP POTUS. Still, in a criminal trial he will usually has an advantage as all it takes is one juror to decide ahead of time that he is innocent regardless of evidence.
But to the point of the post, most people dont vote. Republicans are so outnumbered it probably isn’t worth voting. A better measure might be to ask people, which Pew did. According to their polls DC is about 1/4 Republican. Needing only one juror to hang a jury Trump has good odds.
Steve
steve
Mar 7 2024 at 12:13am
Oops.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/washington-dc-metro-area/party-affiliation/
Craig
Mar 7 2024 at 8:53am
“Still, in a criminal trial he will usually has an advantage as all it takes is one juror to decide ahead of time that he is innocent”
True but I had learned that, effectively, a trial needs two holdouts.
Mactoul
Mar 7 2024 at 12:18am
It is even worse than an unfair trial. That the political affiliation of potential juries is a factor openly discussed strongly suggests that the entire prosecution is politically motivated and it this fact is generally accepted.
Vivian Darkbloom
Mar 7 2024 at 2:11am
The District of Coliumbia jury pools are selected from voter registration and driver’s license and “identicard” records. To be eligible, a juror must be over the age of 18 and a US citizen without a felony record. It appears that about one in seven DC residents has a felony record. That’s about 14 percent of the 700,000 excluded. Per the US census, about 18.5 percent of the population is under the age of 18. I estimate nearly 10 percent of DC residents are not US citizens**. There may be some overlap with the other categories, but that makes about 42.5 percent of DC residents ineligible for jury duty. Thus, the eligible population would be about 400,000 eligible for jury duty. We can assume tha those 746 who voted for Trump are eligible. So far, that makes the odds 746/400,000, or 1 in 536.
But, that’s not the end of the story. Those are the odds of *getting on the jury pool* and not the odds of getting on the jury. In US federal criminal trials, each side gets a certain number of peremptory challenges and an unlimited number of challenges “for cause”. The prosecution gets 6 and the defense gets 10 peremptory. This worsens Trump’s odds considerably. If, there is a 1 in 536 Trump voter (or 6) would get on the jury pool, the odds are pretty much 100 percent that the prosecution would utilize its peremptory challenge. There is probably no way to legally ask or independently verify someone voted for Trump; however, voter registration records can easily be checked to determine if someone registered in the election as a Republican voter. I think this brings the odds much closer to what O’Donnell claimed.
Of course, the odds of winning a lottery are better than the odds that O’Donnell went through all this before making his claim.
Vivian Darkbloom
Mar 7 2024 at 2:13am
**I meant to include this source:
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/immigrants_in_the_district_of_columbia.pdf
steve
Mar 7 2024 at 11:14am
Wikipedia says 5% of registered voters are Republican. Ballotpedia says 6%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Republican_Party
Steve
Vivian Darkbloom
Mar 8 2024 at 1:37pm
Yes. In fact, Trump got 5.4 percent of the DC vote in 2020 versus Biden. There is almost certainly a higher turnout in the general election than in the recent primary so this makes it more likely that someone who voted for Trump in the past could be selected for the jury pool. That was 18,586 versus 317,323 for Biden (this is rather counter to the Pew poll you cite elsewhere which I don’t consider particularly reliable or relevant). So, there is a very strong correlation between Republican registration and votes for Trump.
But— I will again make the point that O’Donnell was talking about *getting on the jury* and not being in the jury pool, which is the analysis that was presented here to counter him. With six peremptory challenges, I think this makes it highly unlikely that a prior Trump voter, if one would get into the pool, would actually get on the jury.
Would it be ethical for Smith to use a peremptory challenge to eliminate someone who registered as a Republican in the past election? That’s questionable, but there is no doubt in my mind that Smith puts winning ahead of borderline ethics.
Cauf Skiviers
Mar 7 2024 at 4:10am
Isn’t the crux of your argument merely that he wielded hyperbole with all the precision of a sledgehammer in a glass shop? One might wonder if hammering on about this even constitutes a point worth making—or is it just an exercise in stating the glaringly obvious with an air of revelatory insight?
David Henderson
Mar 8 2024 at 12:58pm
You wrote:
Yes, as well as a little lesson in probability. If you had taught my students at the Naval Postgraduate School for 33 years, you might wonder less about why I think those lessons are important.
You wrote:
It’s obvious to you and me. I don’t think it’s obvious to everyone.
Craig
Mar 7 2024 at 8:27am
Of course Trump’s defense could make a motion to change venue. That’s not terribly uncommon for somebody standing trial for a notorious crime to try to get the trial moved somewhere else where the passions of the jury are likely to be less immflamed.
Ken Costello
Mar 7 2024 at 2:22pm
David,
Wouldn’t some of those 200,000 who would be ineligible be Trump supporters, so the odds may not change? Of course, it depends on the percentage of Trump supporters who would be ineligible to vote compared with the percentage who are Democrats. Thanks
David Henderson
Mar 8 2024 at 12:58pm
No, because the 200,000 are children or non-citizens.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Mar 7 2024 at 10:08pm
I would think that a high percentage of both Trump voters and non-Trump voters would vote as they saw the evidence, not according to partisanship. Same would be true if Hunter Biden were tried in Alabama.
David Henderson
Mar 8 2024 at 12:59pm
I don’t think it would be high, but it wouldn’t be zero, I point I made in the original post above.
Michael Sandifer
Mar 8 2024 at 1:00am
Now I’m surprised that you watch MSNBC. I was previously surprised to find out you watch Fox News.
I’ve always voted Democratic, but I don’t watch MSNBC, because I’m not looking to have people tell me what I want to hear. I’d rather not pay attention to a network that openly carries the water for a political party.
Of course, Fox News is far, far worse in that respect, so I certainly don’t watch that either.
David Henderson
Mar 8 2024 at 12:59pm
I don’t watch MSNBC typically. I saw the link to that item.
BC
Mar 8 2024 at 12:08pm
“He doesn’t use the term ‘fair trial’ and he doesn’t seem to mind, but that is the point he’s making.”
O’Donnell doesn’t use the term “fair trial” because it’s probably *not* what he means, which is also why he doesn’t seem to mind. His *critics* say that O’Donnell doesn’t mind that Trump won’t get a fair trial, but O’Donnell’s point is probably that the jury is *unlikely* to be biased in favor of Trump. Trump is on trial in DC for trying to overturn the 2020 election. About 85% of Trump’s supporters in Republican primaries believe that Trump lost to Biden due to voter fraud, despite the fact that the matter has already been adjudicated and dismissed as without merit. A “fair” jury is expected to make their decisions based on the evidence presented in court. The fact that about 85% of Trump supporters have difficulty accepting that Trump lost fair and square even after that particular fact has already been adjudicated suggests that they have difficulty accepting facts, as far as the legal system is concerned, regarding the 2020 election. Since the case clearly involves the 2020 election, it stands to reason that many of them would have difficulty convicting Trump regardless of the evidence. Trump himself has said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still support him. If they were left off the jury in his trial for the shooting, that would hardly make the trial “unfair”.
O’Donnell also doesn’t say that *independents* are unlikely to be on Trump’s jury. So, whether you agree with him or not, O’Donnell’s point is probably that he thinks Trump will get a fair trial, which is why he doesn’t seem to mind. It’s like pointing out that it’s very unlikely that a defendant’s friends and relatives will end up on the jury. The point would be that a defendant’s friends and relatives would likely be very biased for the defendant, not that strangers would be biased against the defendant. Again, fine to disagree with O’Donnell but at least understand his point. It’s unfair to him to suggest that he doesn’t seem to mind that Trump won’t get a fair trial.
BC
Mar 8 2024 at 12:21pm
To underscore the point, the 676 refers to the people that voted for Trump in DC’s Republican primary. The people not in the 676 includes not just partisan Democrats but also independents, non-voters, and indeed Republicans that may vote for Trump in November and/or even may have voted for him in the past! So, the bias here is thinking that a fair trial requires including at least some of Trump’s strongest and most loyal supporters on the jury. That is very much like claiming that a fair trial requires including the defendant’s family members on a jury. In reality, family members should be and are excluded from juries to *ensure* fair trials.
David Henderson
Mar 8 2024 at 1:00pm
You write:
He’s saying way more than that. He’s saying it’s likely to be biased against Trump.
BC
Mar 8 2024 at 4:04pm
Consider two jury pools:
Pool A: a mix of Democrats, independents, non-voters, and even Republicans that voted for Trump in the past and/or may vote for him in November but did not vote for him in this year’s DC primary.
Pool B: everyone in Pool A, plus diehard Trump supporters that will stick with him no matter what.
O’Donnell clearly believes that Pool A is much more likely than Pool B. But, what is the rationale for claiming that *O’Donnell* would find Pool A to be “biased against Trump”? He quite likely believes that diehard Trump supporters will acquit Trump regardless of the evidence, but there is nothing in the video clip suggesting that O’Donnell believes that Pool A will convict Trump regardless of the evidence — although some MAGA people seem to think so — nor does O’Donnell suggest that the jury will consist of Pool C: all partisan Democrats that would convict Trump regardless of the evidence.
In the Old South, there were white supremacist jurors that would refuse to convict whites that killed blacks. If someone said, “Hey, this jury is unlikely to include such persons,” would you say that the person is claiming that the jury is likely to be biased against the defendant? I would say that the person is merely claiming that the jury is unlikely to be biased in favor of the defendant.
With all due respect, I think you are falling for the MAGA fallacy that anyone that is not a diehard Trump supporter must be biased against Trump. Otherwise, why would excluding diehard Trump supporters create a biased jury? The video clip says only that the jury pool includes very few diehard Trump supporters (676). It says nothing about containing all or mostly fervent anti-Trumpers that are likely to convict regardless of evidence.
Aside: How do people get line breaks between paragraphs? When I enter text in the comment box, it looks like there are line breaks between paragraphs. But, after I submit, the paragraphs appear without line breaks.
Jose Pablo
Mar 8 2024 at 6:40pm
Any “fair trial” will send Trump to jail.
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