The Trial: A "Good Juror"

Summary

Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy

Episode: The Trial: A "Good Juror"
Release Date: May 9, 2025
Host: Brian Buckmire, ABC News Legal Contributor
Guest: Eric Rudich, Senior Litigation Consultant with Blueprint Trial Consulting

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I. Introduction to the Trial

The episode opens with Brian Buckmire introducing the ongoing trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs, highlighting the critical phase of jury selection. As of May 9, 2025, jury selection has commenced with 45 prospective jurors under consideration, aiming to finalize the jury by the weekend to proceed with opening statements as early as Monday, May 12th.

“This week, jury selection kicked off in the trial of Sean Diddy Combs.”
— Brian Buckmire [00:34]

II. Understanding Jury Selection

Brian explains the intricacies of the jury selection process, emphasizing its unpredictability and the judge's tight schedule aiming to commence the trial promptly. A diverse group of prospective jurors, including professionals like massage therapists, freelance writers, investment analysts, and high school wrestling coaches, are undergoing evaluations to ensure impartiality.

“Legal minds like me refer to this whole jury selection process as voir dire. It means to speak the truth.”
— Brian Buckmire [05:00]

III. The Role of Jury Consultants

To delve deeper into the strategies behind jury selection, Brian introduces Eric Rudich, a senior litigation consultant who specializes in preparing legal teams for trial. Rudich elucidates the multifaceted role of jury consultants, which includes developing case strategies, identifying case weaknesses, profiling potential jurors, and analyzing visual evidence to bolster the case.

“Jury consultants, the work that they do is a lot different than was portrayed in the media. A lot of what we do is behind the scenes to assist attorneys with developing case strategy...”
— Eric Rudich [04:20]

IV. Tailoring Strategies for Defense and Prosecution

Rudich outlines the divergent strategies employed by the defense and prosecution during jury selection. For the defense, the aim is to find jurors who may have unconventional views on sexuality or who haven't been influenced negatively by media portrayals of Diddy. In contrast, the prosecution seeks jurors with traditional views on sexuality, positive perceptions of law enforcement, and familiarity with the case details.

“For the prosecution, you would want probably the reverse.”
— Eric Rudich [02:42]

“In this case, you certainly want an individual who has kind of an untraditional sexual lifestyle... For the prosecution, you would want people who have much more traditional sexual lifestyles...”
— Eric Rudich [10:35]

V. Conducting Mock Trials

The discussion transitions to the significance of mock trials in preparing for the actual trial. Rudich explains that mock trials, akin to market research, help legal teams understand juror reactions and refine their approaches. These simulations involve diverse participants who mirror potential jurors, providing invaluable feedback on case reception and strategy effectiveness.

“Absolutely. And that’s an important aspect of our work as jury consultants is to test our clients cases and do mock trials.”
— Eric Rudich [07:40]

VI. Evaluating Juror Suitability

Brian probes into the methodologies used to assess juror suitability, particularly when prospective jurors disclose past experiences with sexual assault. Rudich emphasizes the importance of follow-up questions and the nuanced evaluation of such disclosures to determine impartiality.

“It may also come down to what type of sexual assault, when it occurred, how traumatic it was for that individual.”
— Eric Rudich [12:05]

VII. Real-World Challenges in Jury Selection

The conversation highlights the unpredictable nature of juror behavior and the challenges faced during selection. Brian shares an anecdote where a prospective juror openly expressed distrust towards the defense team, illustrating the delicate balance attorneys must maintain in assessing both verbal and non-verbal cues.

“I’ve had jury selection where one prospective juror got up on the witness stand, said that he couldn’t trust those people.”
— Brian Buckmire [18:25]

Rudich adds that while juror questionnaires provide initial insights, the dynamics observed during voir dire are more telling of a juror's potential biases.

“What they say or what they write on the juror questionnaire is informative, but how they react and respond to questions during the voir dire is much more informative...”
— Eric Rudich [19:57]

VIII. The Ongoing Role of Jury Consultants During Trial

Rudich clarifies that the involvement of jury consultants extends beyond jury selection. They play a crucial role in refining opening statements, preparing witnesses, organizing evidence, and even assisting in post-selection strategies such as preparing the defendant for testimony.

“Certainly jury consultants are often retained on trial to assist with preparing the witnesses for their testimony, for closing arguments...”
— Eric Rudich [15:30]

He further speculates on the possibility of a consultant aiding Sean Combs in testifying, highlighting the importance of meticulous preparation to ensure favorable jury perception.

“If Sean Combs does testify, he will be going through a great deal of prep, and I'm sure he's going to even be prepped just to determine if he does testify, how will he be perceived by the jury.”
— Eric Rudich [16:22]

IX. Conclusion and Upcoming Developments

As the episode nears its end, Brian recaps the key points discussed and provides updates on courtroom developments, including the behavior of Diddy's former lawyer and the ongoing jury selection process. He also invites listeners to engage by submitting questions for future episodes.

“That's it for this episode of Bad the Case Against Diddy. I'm Brian Buckmire.”
— Brian Buckmire [20:25]

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Key Takeaways:

• Jury Selection (Voir Dire): A critical phase where both defense and prosecution seek to assemble an impartial jury through meticulous vetting and strategic questioning.

• Role of Jury Consultants: Essential in high-stakes cases, consultants provide strategic insights, conduct mock trials, and assist in refining case presentations to align with juror profiles.

• Customized Strategies: Each case demands tailored approaches based on its unique circumstances, focusing on juror backgrounds, experiences, and potential biases.

• Importance of Mock Trials: Simulations offer a controlled environment to test and refine case strategies, ensuring preparedness for actual trial dynamics.

• Challenges in Assessing Impartiality: Determining a juror's ability to remain unbiased involves analyzing both their responses and underlying attitudes, often requiring nuanced judgment.

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This episode of Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy provides an in-depth exploration of the complexities involved in jury selection, particularly in high-profile cases. Through the expertise of Eric Rudich, listeners gain valuable insights into the strategic processes that shape judicial outcomes.

Transcript

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[Brian Buckmire]

This week, jury selection kicked off in the trial of Sean Diddy Combs.

[News Reporter]

The Sean Combs sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York is expected to have a jury seated by Friday. The judge currently has 45 prospective jurors in place. Both the prosecution and defense anticipate the jury will be finalized by the weekend.

[Brian Buckmire]

We're never really sure how long this jury selection process could take, but the judge has been running a very tight ship and so he seemed to be on track for the trial to start next week. We could hear opening statements as early as Monday, May 12th. This week we saw dozens of prospective jurors cycle in and out of the courtroom. They included a massage therapist, a freelance writer, an investment analyst, and a high school wrestling coach. A real cross section of New Yorkers. One by one, they answered questions from the judge. Questions like, have you listened to podcasts about this case? What social media do you use? Also questions about whether they think they'll be able to listen to testimony that's sexual in nature about things the government says are a crime. What's the purpose of these questions? It's to figure out whether the juror can give Sean Combs a fair and impartial trial. Legal minds like me refer to this whole jury selection process as voir dire. It means to speak the truth. While the courtroom theater has already begun, the government and the defense have been preparing behind the scenes for months. And gaming out jury selection is a crucial step in that preparation. Think about it. The 12 jurors and six alternates who will be seated for this trial are going to hear all of the arguments, listen to all of the witnesses, and see all of the evidence. This assortment of people will ultimately decide whether Sean Combs is guilty or not. He continues to deny all of the charges against him. So in this episode, we're going to hear from someone who knows a lot about the strategizing that goes into jury selection and and how that could play into this case.

[Eric Rudich]

I think if you're the defense, you certainly want an individual who has kind of a untraditional sexual lifestyle, for example, probably someone who hasn't followed the case very closely because I think a lot of the media attention has not been very positive. To Sean Combs. For the prosecution, you would want probably the reverse.

[Brian Buckmire]

This is bad rap. The case against Diddy. I'm Brian Buckmire, an ABC News legal contributor and practicing attorney. This episode, a good juror. My guest today is Eric Rudich. He's a senior litigation consultant with Blueprint Trial Consulting. His job is to help legal teams prepare for trial, including jury selection. And to be clear, he is not working on Diddy's case. Now, before we hear my conversation with Eric, I just want to mention that as a former public defender, I've never worked with a jury consultant. This process we're going to describe, it doesn't happen on every case, actually, far from it. That's because jury consultants are expensive. They typically work on really big cases with really deep pocketed clients. We know from court records that Combs lawyers are using a jury consultant, and even more rare, so is the prosecution. So I started off by asking Eric about what his job entails. I think a lot of people haven't heard of a jury consultant, or at most, maybe they've seen a fictionalized version on tv.

[Eric Rudich]

Yeah, absolutely. So the show Bull is about a jury consultant, and it certainly is a glamorized view of jury consulting with a lot of technology that you wouldn't be allowed to have in the courtroom. Jury consultants, the work that they do is a lot different than was portrayed in the media. A lot of what we do is behind the scenes to assist attorneys with developing case strategy, determining what their weaknesses are, how to address those weaknesses, what are the profiles of good and dangerous jurors in this case? What kind of visual evidence will help your case? Another tasks that jury consultants will do as part of their engagement in a trial like this is do very thorough investigations of prospective jurors. So we will run background reports on them to determine if they're registered Democrat or Republican, what their social media presence has been, where they live, their home value. In addition, we're doing a thorough search on their online presence to determine what have they posted, what have they liked. Some people call it cyber stalking. We're just doing background information to determine what publicly available information we have on those jurors that might be indicative of whether they're likely to favor the prosecution or shown Combs in this case.

[Brian Buckmire]

Let's have a little fun. Right? You and I just met a few Minutes ago. You know that Brian Buckmire is going to walk in as a prospective juror. What are some of the things you're going to try to look into? Where are the avenues where you might look into them, where you would have the ability to tell a client, brian's good for your jury, or maybe Brian's not good for your jury. How do you start that search?

[Eric Rudich]

I'm going to first look at your responses on the juror questionnaire, and then me and my team are going to do a deep dive on your online presence, which I'm sure there is a good amount of. We're also going to do a deep dive on your personal social media and we're going to find out, based on your responses to the questions during voir dire in court, are you the type of juror that's going to closely scrutinize the evidence, or are you going to be someone who's going to be quick to make decisions? And I think in your case, because of your education level and because you were a public defender, I think you would be more favorable to the defense just based on your demographics and very life experience.

[Brian Buckmire]

Now, do you or jury consultants take like a one size fits all? You say, okay, this is an assault case, so we're going to do it this way. This is a rape case, we're going to do it this way. This is a murder case. Is that kind of how that works?

[Eric Rudich]

All the pre trial research has to be customized. It's similar to conducting a market research study, except your product is your case and, and you want to see how well received it will be and what you need to do to change your product that is your case, to make it more receptive to prospective jurors.

[Brian Buckmire]

Now, you used the word test a case. And for whatever reason, that kind of brought me back to law school. The fun parts, I remember where we did mock trials, where we did like an exhibition of what a trial would look like with fake jurors and a fake defendant and a fake case. Are you doing mock trials with some of your clients to show them how to do this?

[Eric Rudich]

Absolutely. And that's an important aspect of our work as jury consultants is to test our clients cases and do mock trials. We're using or working with actual individuals in the trial venue who could be prospective jurors. In this case, of course, they're not jurors. And this is all done well in advance of trial. But typically a mock trial is one or two or even three days. And so we would have a recruiter Similar to a focus group, come and recruit, let's say, 30 or 40 or even more people to arrive at the exercise. And the individuals would be paid for their time. And they come from all walks of life. So they might be the person who works at a bodega, it might be a secretary, it might be a teacher. And the idea is to get a representative sample like you would in a trial jury. But we're looking to see how someone who might be a juror on this case, who has similar demographic and characteristics and attitudes and experiences of a prospective juror might react to the case.

[Brian Buckmire]

Well, if you ever need an ABC Legal contributor and you could put me up at a hotel and just, I'm happy to be part of this focus group.

[Eric Rudich]

I'll let you know our daily rate and you can see if it works for you.

[Brian Buckmire]

Exactly. Now, there's been a lot of talk about questionnaires, and in this case there is a 31 question questionnaire that went out to the prospective jurors before they even got into the court. What stood out to you? Also, what would you give in the questionnaire, like an A plus or what would you say? This could have been worked on a little bit better. And then ultimately, how do you think it does in terms of picking a good juror?

[Eric Rudich]

So the questionnaire focuses a lot on hardship and bias, which of course it should. Overall, I'd give the juror questionnaire a B because I think there could be a lot more information included in the juror questionnaire about individuals attitudes particularly. But it certainly works for the court to determine whether or not someone could be potentially biased. Important question is what they've heard about the case, if they formed any opinions about the case that indicate that it may not be a fair and impartial juror. On this particular case, there are questions about whether they've been a victim of sexual assault. There are also questions about whether they've been accused of sexually assaulting individuals. So there are questions on there to uncover whether someone is potentially their experiences indicate that they may be biased and may not be a fair and impartial juror in this case.

[Brian Buckmire]

Now, just to be clear to our listeners, you are not working on the Diddy case. And based on my understanding and being in the court, there is a jury consultant there. And so, so let's kind of put you into that role there. Sean Combs has now hired you or the SDNY has now hired you. If you were working on this case on either side, what would be the sort of profile that you're looking for, for the type of juror in the.

[Eric Rudich]

Sean Combs case for the defense, I would be particularly concerned about individuals who've been victims of sexual assault. And there are probably a number of individuals who say that they were victims but can still be fair and impartial. In this case, you certainly want an individual who has kind of a untraditional sexual lifestyle, for example, probably someone who hasn't followed the case very closely. Because I think a lot of the media attention has not been very positive to Sean Combs, someone who's not had very favorable experiences with law enforcement. For the prosecution, you would want probably the reverse. You would want people who have much more traditional sexual lifestyle, maybe individuals who follow the case closely, who've started to form some opinions, maybe have seen the Cassandra video, individuals who have positive views of law enforcement. I would want to know if anyone has been accused of committing a crime or have had negative experiences with law enforcement or mistrustful of prosecutors. So those are just a few of the characteristics I think each side will be looking for when they're selecting the jury in this case.

[Brian Buckmire]

Within the questionnaire and even when asking a prospective juror, there are going to be individuals, as you know, who are going to say that they were victims of sexual assault or abuse in the past. When that issue comes out, how do you parse through which one of those individuals can be fair to a defendant like Sean Combs and who can't be fair?

[Eric Rudich]

It's certainly how they will respond to the follow up questions during court. It may also come down to what type of sexual assault, when it occurred, how traumatic it was for that individual. So all those factors will come into play when determining first if they indicate they could be fair and impartial to begin with, but then also when both sides are evaluating whether or not to use one of their strikes on that particular juror.

[Brian Buckmire]

In the public defender's offices and some of the conversations that I just have with attorneys, we seem to think, and please tell me if I'm crazy or if this makes sense, that there are certain archetypes of people that if you have a certain case that you want someone who is a woman with a certain education and a certain background or a certain part of Brooklyn because we may know the different communities, or if you have another case, you might want a blue collar male worker who looks at protecting their three daughters in a way that's different than someone else. Is that true or is that just make belief in our heads?

[Eric Rudich]

It's true to some extent, but those are you know the demographic characteristics that you describe are often a product of individuals experiences. So the extent to which certain groups have certain experiences that would be predictive of their verdict orientation. So you may want the blue collar worker, but the question is why? What about their attitudes, their life experiences, their value system that indicates that they may be favorable to your particular case?

[Brian Buckmire]

So Eric's explained what jury consultants do before and during voir dire, but is there a role for them to play later on in the trial? And what are some of the more surprising things Eric's found doing background research on potential jurors? That's after the break.

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[Brian Buckmire]

Once the jury is selected, is it kind of I'm done, I walk away from the case onto the next one? Or is there still more that you carry on with the case?

[Eric Rudich]

Often we're retained to assist with jury selection, but for a case like this, it wouldn't surprise me if the jury consultants stayed on to work with the attorneys on, let's say their opening statements and fine tune their opening statements based on the research that they've done. Certainly jury consultants are often retained on trial to assist with preparing the witnesses for their testimony, for closing arguments, jury consultants are working with the attorneys to help organize the evidence and organize their themes in a way that's persuasive to the jurors. So there's a lot more that jury consultants will do, particularly in a high stakes case like this.

[Brian Buckmire]

Could a jury consultant be part of potentially preparing Sean Combs if he decides to testify?

[Eric Rudich]

That would be critical, actually. So if Sean Combs does testify, he will be going through a great deal of prep, and I'm sure he's going to even be prepped just to determine if he does testify, how will he be perceived by the jury. So it certainly would not be surprising to me. In fact, I think it would be almost a certainty that if he's going to testify, that there will be a jury consultant involved with helping prepare his testimony.

[Brian Buckmire]

I'm curious how that looks, because again, as a defense attorney, my clients often can't afford a jury consultant. So my prep of a defendant to potentially testify may differ from you. For me, I get in one of my buddies or a friend and I say, grill this client as if you're a prosecutor and see if you can make them sweat. See if you can make them lash out. And then we gauge how they did on that cross examination. I might get a few interns, a few first year associates or attorneys as prospective jurors, and that's how I would prep a defendant or a client to potentially take the stand. Am I that far off from you or are you doing something similar? Something different? Like how would Sean Combs be prepped to potentially testify?

[Eric Rudich]

Very similar. He would undergo a vigorous cross examination to see how he would respond to very tough questions about evidence and certainly the Cassandra video. I don't think in this case it would be very different. I can't imagine people coming in because there would be the issues with confidentiality. So even though you might have someone sign an NDA, it's not very foolproof. And I could see someone go into the media and say, hey, I just participated in a mock witness testing with Sean Combs, and that would be the worst thing he could do for his case.

[Brian Buckmire]

What is some of the wildest thing you maybe have seen during this quote, unquote, cyber stalking, that you're like, what? Red flag. We've got to bring this up?

[Eric Rudich]

Well, you certainly see people's strong political views, especially in this environment. So, you know, you may have a defendant who is black, and during your investigation, you may see Confederate flags as part of their social media, which we've seen in the past. So you'll often see extreme political views that you may bring up to the court to indicate to the judge that although they might not have indicated during the voir dire process, they may not be a particularly fair and impartial juror in this case.

[Brian Buckmire]

Yeah, and I'll share one example as well. I've had jury selection where one prospective juror got up on the witness stand, said that he couldn't trust those people. We went into a private chamber with a judge who was Hispanic, two prosecutors who were white. My co counsel was white, and I'm the only black person. And the prospective juror who was not black kept saying, I can't trust those people. I kept telling everyone, we could just move on, guys. We know what he's saying. And ultimately the prospective juror turned and looked at me and he says, I don't trust them. And I'm like, I'm not even on trial, so I don't know what we're doing here. But the person was excused. So, yeah, we see crazy things like that. And I'll follow up on that because there's a difference between what a person says and how they say it. And I think with the defense attorney and even the government will look at how it's said and say, all right, I might not be able to get them out for a cause, but I will definitely take them out for peremptor challenges. If I say, I really like Eric, I want to go out for a beer with him, you're like, I think Brian wants to hang out with Eric, but if I say I really like Eric, I may want to get a beer with him. Same words. But the way in which it was said, it's clear whether or not Eric's going to use one of his peremptory challenges to go get a beer with me.

[Eric Rudich]

That's a great example. So certainly what they say or what they write on the juror questionnaire is informative, but how they react and respond to questions during the voir dire is much more informative and will be indicative of whether they're likely to favor one side or another in this case.

[Brian Buckmire]

Got it. Thank you very much, Dr. Eric Rudish, for your time here. Really appreciate the conversation.

[Eric Rudich]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Brian Buckmire]

By the way, you're going to see peremptory strikes in action in Diddy's trial today. For cause is when a judge or attorney strikes a prospective juror for bias or because they won't be able to be impartial, a peremptory challenge is when attorneys strike a juror for any reason at all, but importantly, they have a limited amount of strikes. In this case, the prosecution will get six and the defense has 10. The number of peremptory challenges depends on how much potential jail time a defendant is facing. Before we go, we want to catch you up on one other highlight from the courtroom this week. Mark Garagos, a lawyer who has represented Diddy in the past, got scolded by the judge for the way he's talked about the prosecutors in the case. Now, Garagos isn't officially one of Diddy's attorneys for the trial. His daughter is, but he's someone they've been consulting in court. Geragos has a podcast, and on it he referred to the team of prosecutors as a six pack of white women. Judge Subramanian did not like that. Neither did the prosecutors. They told the judge the podcast has several million subscribers and his statements could infect the jury pool. The judge spoke to Garagos in chambers. We have a transcript of the exchange. He called the language outrageous and said it wouldn't be tolerated in any court from any lawyer in the country. He warned Garagos that he'll be listening to the podcast from now on. So Garagos made a joke about being all for it as long as the judge subscribes. Last thing, we have a listener call in line so we can answer your burning questions about Sean Diddy Combs case. The number is 646504, 3221. That number again is 646504-3221. You can also find it in our show notes. Please leave us a message. You might hear your question and my answer on an upcoming episode of this podcast. That's it for this episode of Bad the Case Against Diddy. I'm Brian Buckmire. We'll be back next week to catch you up on opening statements and where the trial could go from there. The Case Against Diddy is a production of ABC Audio. I'm Brian Buchmire. The production team includes Vika Aronson, Nancy Rosenbaum, Audrey Mostek, Amira Williams, Tracy Samuelsson and Sasha Aslanian. Special thanks to Stephanie Maurice, Caitlin Morris, Liz Alessi, Katie Dandas and the team at ABC News Live. You can check out their daily show. Burden of the Case Against Diddy streams weekdays at 5:30pm Eastern on ABC News Live. Find it on Disney, Disney Plus, Hulu, or on most of your favorite streaming apps. Michelle Margulis is our operations manager. Josh Cohan is ABC Audio's director of podcast programming Laura Mayer is our executive producer.

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