Does Trump Jury Need to Be Unanimous? Juan Merchan’s Comment Goes Viral

Judge Juan Merchan’s instructions to the jury in Donald Trump’s hush money case raised eyebrows from the former president and his supporters on Wednesday.

Jury deliberations began in the case on Wednesday following weeks of testimony in the first prosecution of a former U.S. president.

In this case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of falsifying business documents to cover up a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. Bragg’s office alleges that the payment was intended to prevent her from going public about her claims of having an affair with the former president.

Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has denied an affair with Daniels and pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony counts. He has also accused Bragg of targeting him for political purposes, equating the trial with election interference.

Among Merchan’s instructions to the jury was that for Trump to be convicted, all jurors must agree he falsified business documents to cover up a crime. However, they do not have to agree on what the crime he was trying to cover up was, Merchan said.

This sparked backlash from some conservatives, some of whom suggested Merchan ruled the jury does not need to be unanimous. However, the jury does need to be unanimous in its verdict, or the trial would result in a hung jury.

Trump blasted the instructions in a post to Truth Social Wednesday afternoon.

“IT IS RIDICULOUS, UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND UNAMERICAN that the highly Conflicted, Radical Left Judge is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me brought by Soros backed D.A. Alvin Bragg. A THIRD WORLD ELECTION INTERFERENCE HOAX!” he wrote.

A post to X (formerly Twitter) from Fox News co-anchor John Roberts went viral across social media in which he stated that Merchan “just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict. 4 could agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another. He said he would treat 4-4-4 as a unanimous verdict.”

Roberts later clarified, “All 12 need unanimity that Trump committed a crime. But the underlying unlawful means is a smorgasbord they can pick from—and they don’t all need to agree on what it was.”

Legal analysts responded to claims that unanimity is not required for the verdict.

“Wrong. Unanimity to convict, but they may disagree about the underlying theory of criminality,” posted Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University in response to Roberts.

“People keep harping on this but are missing the context. They have to be unanimous that Trump falsified the records and did so with the intent to commit another crime. They do not have to be unanimous on what the other crime was: that’s the rule under NY law,” wrote legal analyst Bradley P. Moss.

Attorney Randall Eliason wrote, “Folks, this Tweet that’s making the rounds is very misleading. The lack of unanimity refers not to the charged offense but to the underlying crime the defendant sought to conceal with the false business records—that’s the law in NY, and the defense did not disagree.”

Newsweek reached out to Merchan via the New York Court’s public information office for comment via email.