WILMINGTON, Delaware — Twelve jurors and four alternates were chosen Monday to decide Hunter Biden’s fate in the case against the first son related to a 2018 gun purchase.
Out of about 250 prospective jurors summoned to the federal courthouse in Wilmington, roughly 65 entered the courtroom one by one to answer questions while Biden, his defense attorneys, and some of his family members, including first lady Jill Biden, watched attentively.
Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, first daughter Ashley Biden, and Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris were also in attendance. On the government’s side, special counsel David Weiss watched the proceedings.
Judge Maryellen Noreika and both parties spent the entirety of the day whittling down the pool of jurors by quizzing them with questions such as whether they had strong feelings about gun rights or drug addiction and if they felt the justice system has been weaponized for political purposes.
Some were dismissed for impartiality issues, including a gun salesman, a woman whose opinion of Hunter Biden was, in her words, “not good,” and a man who became tearful speaking about his brother’s drug addiction.
Jurors were weeded out less for their political views and more for their perspectives on addiction and Second Amendment rights. Many jurors knew a family member who owned a gun or battled with addiction. A handful of jurors had deliberated in criminal trials before, including gun trials, and all said their verdicts were guilty. These factors did not necessarily rule them out.
Hunter Biden is facing felony gun charges brought by Weiss over allegations he lied on a federal gun form in 2018 about his drug use to purchase a revolver and then kept the gun for 11 days.
The final panel of 12 was composed of six men and six women.
One was a man who said he had a concealed carry permit and owned “several pistols.” He said that while he found the Second Amendment “very important,” he had no problems with being impartial.
Another man said his older brother was a drug addict, while a woman said her childhood friend died of a heroin overdose. Both said those facts would not affect their ability to judge the case fairly.
The questioning sometimes presented a predicament for the parties in the case. Democratic-aligned prospective jurors who would normally be Biden-friendly sometimes had critical views about the Second Amendment, a dilemma for the first son’s defense team. The defense attorneys also appeared keen on keeping jurors who were sympathetic to drug addiction.
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell asked the man with the older brother if he believed a recovering addict should be able to own a gun. The man answered in the affirmative, saying, “I believe there’s room for change.”
Other jurors included a retired woman who worked in an administrative capacity for Secret Service for more than two decades, a substitute teacher who said he was aspiring to be a forensic scientist, and a man who said the first time he heard about the case was at a graduation party over the weekend.
A mother of two who was chosen as an alternate said she believed gun laws should be “more strict” but that she could put her views aside for the trial. She also said she had not heard much about the case; her work has the news playing in the background, but she puts her AirPods in because it is “depressing,” she said.
Hunter Biden, who periodically donned clear orange-rimmed glasses, appeared engaged the whole day. Cohen Biden, his wife who sat behind him, sometimes subtly reacted to jurors. She looked over at Jill Biden and then shook her head in lamentation when one man said he got his news from Newsmax and Fox. The man was struck from the jury pool after admitting he could not be unbiased.
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The trial, expected to last up to two weeks, will continue Tuesday, during which each side will present their opening statements.
Hunter Biden is facing three felony charges and up to 25 years in prison. While he could be sentenced to jail time if convicted, it is highly unlikely he would receive the maximum penalty.
