Eye Contact with Trump: Hear dismissed juror describe 'odd' court experience at Trump trial

And I want to go back to NBC's Von Hillard outside the

court

house. You have a potential

juror

who has just been

dismissed

. B. Well, I want to introduce everyone to our new friend Cara Cara. You are the first person I have spoken to. you're from the East Village neighborhood, we're talking about a group of New Yorkers that were gathering, you met a group of them, you literally just walked out of the

court

room, yeah, you were in seat number 13, seat number 13, and you told me that you were fired because I work in cybersecurity due to the nature of my job, it would be extremely difficult for me to be here for the necessary hours while this test is done on schedule, so did you have a feeling that you would come to the

trial

from Trump yesterday when you got the jury summons and you knew what was happening today or Monday so I didn't do it but when I got the jury summons I texted my mom like, oh, I have a service jury ahead um and she said oh, I think mid-April is when they're going to call the juries for the Trump

trial

um and I was like oh wow, that would be fascinating um and then I got here yesterday and there was a huge line and protesters of Trump and counter-protesters um and it's like well I'm in that trial or one down the hall from that trial Tri and then our waiting room had like 250 people in it uhum it was that and you were part of that first group of 96 yeah, so you were inside the courtroom the entire time yesterday during the jury selection process uh, so no, I think I was in the first group of

juror

s that they brought into the courtroom um, but we weren't in the courtroom and you were one of the lucky ones who sat in seat 13 in that initial group to answer the questions.

He answered the series of 42 questions. They asked him what he thought of Donald Trump. I know. which were yes or no questions, but if you could be fair and impartial to Donald Trump and you answered uh, I answered Yes, I can be fair and impartial, um, the question was, do you have any prior beliefs or opinions? I think it was I drafted uh about the defendant that would prohibit him from being fair and impartial uh and I said he could be fair and parallel two questions at the top of my mind and I'm sure Jose has a number one follow up.

You were sitting there. how far from Donald Trump, the former president, uh, pretty close, um, oh God, estimate you know, maybe 30 feet 20 feet, what was that like answering questions, including some about Donald Trump, while he's sitting at 30 feet from you, it was strange, uh, it was like that. an interesting

experience

because I'd never seen him in person before, you know, and you see someone so big than life in the media for so many years, seeing him in person is very jarring, and you get the feeling that it's like, oh, this he's just another guy and he sees me talking about him too which is weird.

Did you make eye

contact

with him? Yeah, yeah, at what point, what was that? I think just before I started reading the questionnaire and, uh. right after I finished before I got up to leave when I was

dismissed

, did it add another level of nervousness or tension that you felt with him sitting there? I think it made everything feel more real in a way, because I guess when you're on a jury you have elements of that person's future in your hands, so whether it's Trump or a stranger on the street in Manhattan that I'd never

hear

d of talk before, um, if you commit to Sitting on the jury, you can change that person's life forever and you felt like yeah, Jose, right down the road, he has a question that we want to follow up with, yeah, you know, I I was asking about the extraordinary responsibility, the civic responsibility that we all have. living in this country and maybe serving on a jury is probably the only system like it in the world and there she was sitting just a few feet away from someone who, as she said, is so famous and yet in the last few days It's only about one.

Human being, has he ever taken on that kind of responsibility and the incredible privilege that we have? And did he make a difference by being there as a potential juror? You had a huge potential responsibility knowing that a man's fate is in your hands. I feel the gravity of that, yes, very much, especially considering the IC nature of this trial. I think it was a really fascinating contrast between feeling that gravity is not only in our hands here, but also in the fate of the

hear

ts of our country's legal system in the future is in our hands because this is unprecedented.

Did you have conversations with other potential jurors about this? What did those conversations look like strangely? No. Everyone has been very quiet until now. It seemed to dawn on me that we were there for Trump's trial. There was a sense that everyone was worried about what the protocols were and worried about whether we should talk about it or if we were allowed to talk about it or if we could go home. sent home for talking about it, um, so everyone was very nice at one point, I heard one juror say to another juror, "Oh, do you think this means we're actually on the jury after They just laid off some more people, but?" Other than that, everyone was very quiet, we were talking about your mom, what's your mom's name?

Sharon Sharon, you can talk to Sharon now about this

experience

. Jose Cara, a potential juror in the Trump trial, but was dismissed this morning. Hello everyone. MSNBC has a new and improved app, you'll get real-time alerts and analysis, live blogs, in-depth essays, video highlights and the best coverage of the 2024 election, download the new MSNBC app, here's how, tap the App Store on your phone, press search at the bottom In the right corner you type MSNBC, click on the MSNBC app, click get or the cloud icon and enjoy.