Efrain Galicia, an activist of Mexican origin who claims that Donald Trump’s security guards roughed him up outside Trump Tower during a peaceful protest in September 2015, will have an opportunity to bring these allegations before a jury this week.
On Monday, jury selection will start in the New York City civil trial over Galicia’s allegations that Trump’s security guard roughed him up at “the express or implied direction” of Trump. Galicia and several other activists filed a suit against Trump and a handful of the then presidential candidate’s cronies days after the incident, alleging assault and battery.
The trial comes as Trump does battle with legal woes on a variety of fronts. Federal prosecutors have commenced a criminal inquiry over the former president’s handling of secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and Georgia prosecutors are investigating whether he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The New York state attorney general on 21 September filed a sprawling civil fraud claim alleging massive financial improprieties involving real estate valuations. Trump is also fighting a defamation lawsuit brought by E Jean Carroll; the writer, who has accused him of rape, claims that his denials were a smear.
Given this backdrop, Galicia’s claims appear more quotidian than these other proceedings. This is a civil case about whether several of Trump’s underlings stepped far out of line, not about the disposition of top-secret documents or accusations of sexual assault.
But the suit has generated interest that far exceeds the legal claim, as it arguably marks a watershed in its symbolism. For years, prosecutors across the US have beaten their chests about holding Trump accountable, but now it is a simple assault case out of the Bronx – not one of their many investigations – that is actually going to trial.
And if the jury in this case does what Bronx juries tend to do, Trump might feel significant consequences, legal veterans tell the Guardian. “I’m a civil rights lawyer. If I can get a case into the Bronx, I’ll move heaven and earth,” said Randolph McLaughlin, Pace University law school professor and co-chair of Newman Ferrara LLP’s civil rights practice group. “Bronx juries, they engage in Robinhood-ism. They take from the rich and give to the rest of us – their verdicts are always generally right at the ceiling.”
“There’s no limit in the Bronx. They love to give money to the people,” McLaughlin said. “Donald Trump, as much as he is loved in certain corners of the country, he is not loved in the Bronx.”
There is also the matter of Trump’s courtroom presence: he will not be there. Trump’s testimony will be provided via video deposition.
This is not uncommon for parties residing outside a trial court’s jurisdiction, and the judge will instruct jurors that it shouldn’t be held against Trump. But jurors are only human.
“If jurors can take time out of their busy days to sit in judgment, you can’t take time out of your busy day?” McLaughlin said of panelists’ potential sentiment. As far as the instruction goes: “I don’t think it’s going to carry much weight. Jurors, inside themselves, are going to resent the fact. Who does he think he is? He’s not going to show up to court?”
“I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again: the Bronx civil court is the greatest instrument of wealth redistribution since the Red Army,” said Ron Kuby, a longtime New York City criminal defense attorney focused on civil rights. “A Bronx jury is going to view this case with a fair eye and if they find that the defendant is liable, they are going to award massive sums.”
“While the compensatory damages are not great in the standard of major lawsuits – this isn’t Sandy Hook or Abner Louima, this is not a neurologist who had his wrist broken and can’t operate – the potential punitive damages are very substantial, and Trump will be personally liable for those as well as the individual defendants” if Trump loses, Kuby said.
There is a caveat. Enormous sums may well be overturned on appeal. “As a historic matter, when Bronx juries sort of give full vent to how they feel about misconduct the appeals courts tend to rein them in,” Kuby added.
Steve Cohen of Pollock Cohen LLP said that jurors won’t necessarily be unfair just because a case involves Trump.
“You never know how jurors are going to react and one might assume that a Bronx jury would be less receptive to former president Trump than jurors in other locations, but I have actually been on four juries through verdict, and jurors take their job very, very seriously, and I really believe that jurors will go in with an open mind and listen to the evidence,” Cohen said.
“That said, there’s a presumption – given everything that’s going on, nobody is unaware of all the other issues surrounding former president Trump – and it’s going to be very hard to separate this particular set of circumstances from the broader questions surrounding former president Donald Trump’s behavior.”
