FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Former president Donald Trump's criminal case in Manhattan got off to a fast start: jury selection took just a week.
But legal experts said Monday jury selection in any potential trial in the Fulton County election interference against the former president was unlikely to follow the same quick pace.
"I think it’s really a different game because you’re dealing with a different jury pool," said former DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James. "You’re dealing with a different set of background facts because of all the motions and how controversial and how messy things have gotten here in Fulton County."
The jury selection process is designed to make sure defendants get a fair hearing at trial, he said.
"What the law requires is you have to have the ability as a prospective juror to set those opinions aside and listen to the facts and the evidence and judge them," he said.
However, finding enough impartial jurors to fill a jury box in a potential Fulton County election interference trial could take much longer than the five-day process in Trump's recent New York trial, according to James.
Unlike in his New York case, Trump is charged in Fulton County alongside more than a dozen other co-defendants. According to James, the attorneys for each of them would get an opportunity to question potential jurors, slowing the selection process and drawing comparisons to the ongoing multi-defendant YSL RICO case that took nearly a year to seat a jury.
"I know they're going to try to cut that down substantially," said Atlanta jury consultant Madeline Summerville. "Especially because of the election that's upcoming."
But how much that timeline can be sped up is an open question.
James said Fulton County is a more politically diverse venue than Manhattan, which could make selecting a jury more time-consuming.
According to Summerville, logistics might also pose a challenge.
"It's going to take many, many witnesses over the course of maybe months to be able to get all the testimony out that you need in order to be able to prove your case," she said.
Finding jurors who can physically be present without conflicts for a trial that long can create additional hurdles for attorneys and the judge, Summerville said.
James also noted that the months-long disqualification saga involving Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and former special prosecutor Nathan Wade may have impacted how some potential jurors view the case.
"I think that this is a month, multi-month process that could go perhaps into the coming election," said James.
So far, no trial date has been set in Fulton County. However, late last year, prosecutors asked the judge to schedule a trial for August.