UPDATE: Judge in Jonathan Majors trial seals “prejudicial and inflammatory” evidence
Evidence reportedly concerning past incidents was taken off the table during jury selection in the Jonathan Majors trial
Aux News Jonathan Majors![UPDATE: Judge in Jonathan Majors trial seals “prejudicial and inflammatory” evidence](https://img.pastemagazine.com/wp-content/avuploads/2023/11/14224132/6bcb7afdd1e80bea5618ad3cbc4e07f7.jpg)
Update, 11/30/23 at 2:52 p.m.: Jury selection in the Jonathan Majors trial continued on Thursday, and Judge Michael Gaffey’s rulings on two pre-trial motions were confirmed: one, that the potentially “prejudicial and inflammatory” evidence would remain sealed for the rest of the trial, and two, that the jury would be allowed to hear that Majors’ ex, Grace Jabbari, had been arrested over the same incident. The original story continues below.
The trial of Jonathan Majors commenced on Wednesday in New York City as the judge made a ruling about sealing certain evidence, reportedly concerning “potential past incidents” of a similar nature to the current trial (per Deadline). Majors faces four charges of assault and aggravated harassment against his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari regarding an altercation that occurred earlier this year. (A fifth charge of strangulation has been dropped.)
Majors was present in court on Wednesday for a hearing on several motions, with jury selection expected to take place later in the afternoon. One of the motions from the defense requested that certain “contested evidence” remain under seal due to the high profile nature of Majors and the trial. “We believe that the disclosure on this one limited issue would taint the jury pool beyond repair,” one of Majors’ lawyers, Seth Zuckerman, argued to the judge (via Deadline). Katherine Bolger, a lawyer for a group of media organizations fighting for the records to be unsealed, argued that “There is already pre-trial publicity,” seemingly referencing previous reports that “multiple alleged abuse victims of Majors” were cooperating with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Ultimately, Judge Michael Gaffey ruled in favor of Majors’ team, noting that the sealed information is “likely to be prejudicial and inflammatory.” He agreed that any publicity surrounding the sealed information would “threaten” the jury selection process. (Per Variety, the information might still become public if the evidence is found to be admissible for trial.)
According to Deadline, Judge Gaffey also ruled that prosecutors cannot refer to Jabbari as a “victim” while interviewing potential jurors, and deferred a judgment as to whether jurors could hear about Jabbari’s arrest in October (based on a cross-complaint from Majors). Despite the fact that the Manhattan D.A. declined to prosecute Jabbari, Majors’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry argued in favor of allowing mention of her arrest to the jury. “Despite the DA’s …witness list, this case is really about the credibility of one person,” she said.
31 Comments
Man, it’s a bit of a lose-lose, yeah? If you release the evidence, it may prejudice the jury pool, but wouldn’t news that there was evidence so damning that they sealed it lest it taint the jury pool also likely to prejudice the jury pool?
I think that the general public isn’t generally paying attention to pretrial motions, or trying to speculate about what the information could be. But if you release specific information that’s prejudicial to Majors, that specific information may be far more vivid, memorable, and likely to capture the public’s attention.
He looks like he’s having a pretrial motion in his pants in every photo he’s in.
Just wait til he has a “press conference”.
if it please the court…
I would like to get in there and object!
To me this is like them basically saying “yeah he’s been abusing people in the past BUT! in this specific incident he didn’t do it so we’re worried the jury might find him guilty anyway because he’s an abuser”.
Well, it’s a trial for a specific set of crimes, not a lifetime achievement award.
No matter, throw that fucking abuser in the cell.
“taint”!
Comments here, no comments under the video game movies article…oh that clock’s ticking down, isn’t it?
I wonder if anyone will buy the AV Club
Could it be absorbed into Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place?
His website, or his coping mechanism?
That sounds painful.
Could it be absorbed into Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place?
The comment so nice I starred it twice.
Paste Magazine just acquired Jezebel and Splinter(!), so if they buy AV Club as well, maybe they can get a buy two, get one free kinda deal!
Thanks for the info! Went over there to read the article.
I can only access the comment section of about half the articles I go to, just through the poor functionality of all these sites.
Are we still doing the believing women thing or not?
Only if there are a sufficient number of them, apparently.
And they have to be perfect victims.
I usually side with the trust but verify argument. Also the stuff in the article is just normal attorney stuff no different that jury selection both sides want to get a juror they believe to be favorable to their side.
Except that one side has newly-minted Marvel money behind it.
Sure, but my point still stands, the attorney on either side will 100% try to skew things like the jury or evidence in their favor, it’s standard operating procedure.
Howard the Duck can suck it…
Do you want space rabies? Because that is how you get space rabies!
This sort of thing is utterly inane and normal legal procedure. I know there’s a temptation to read something sensationalist into it, but while, yes, it’s possible that something there is scandalous, the level of insinuation here is unsubstantiated.(and no, this isn’t a defense of him – I strongly suspect he’s guilty as fuck. I just hate how journalists with no conception of law or legal procedures write about this stuff with incredible ignorance, and by doing so spread that ignorance like a virus. If there’s one thing I learned in law school, it’s just how little the non-legal media understands how any of this stuff works.)