NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — A dozen residents of Manhattan will become the first to sit on a jury for a former U.S. president charged with a crime, with jury selection to start Monday in Donald Trump's hush money case.

This matter is the first to go to trial among four criminal prosecutions currently pending for Trump, the former president and leading Republican presidential nominee. The State of New York and E. Jean Carroll cases, both heard in recent months, were civil lawsuits.

The circumstances present a historic challenge for the court, the lawyers and the citizens who find themselves in the jury pool. Trump lived for decades in Manhattan, where he made his name as a real estate developer with a flair for publicity.

“There is no question that picking a jury in a case involving someone as familiar to everyone as former President Trump poses unique problems,” one of the trial prosecutors, Joshua Steinglass, said during a hearing.

Those challenges include finding people who can be impartial about a public figure; detecting any bias among prospective jurors without invading the privacy of their ballot.

There's also the risk that people may try to game their way onto the jury to serve a personal agenda. And some may be reluctant to decide a case against a man who has used his social media megaphone to criticize court decisions that go against him and has tens of millions of fervent supporters.

Still, if jury selection will be tricky, it's not impossible, says John Jay College of Criminal Justice psychology professor Margaret Bull Kovera.

"There are people who will look at the law, look at the evidence that’s shown and make a decision," says Kovera, whose research includes the psychology of juries. “And the job of the judge and the attorneys right now is to figure out who those people are.”

In this case, Trump has pleaded not guilty to fudging his company’s books as part of an effort to conceal payments made to hide claims of extramarital sex during his 2016 campaign. He denies the encounters and contends the case is a legally bogus, politically engineered effort to sabotage his current run.

The process of choosing a jury will begin when Judge Juan M. Merchan calls prospective jurors into the courtroom, giving them a brief description of the case and other basics. He is them expected to excuse any people who indicate by a show of hands that they can’t serve or can’t be fair and impartial, he wrote.

Those who remain will be called in groups into the jury box — by number, as their names won't be made public — to answer a list of questions, some of which are routine juror queries.

Merchan emphasized that he won’t let the lawyers ask about jurors’ voting choices, political contributions or party registration.

But the approved questionnaire asks, for example, whether someone has “political, moral, intellectual or religious beliefs or opinions” that might “slant your approach to this case."

Another query probes whether prospective jurors support any of a half-dozen far-right or far-left groups, have attended Trump or anti-Trump rallies, and have worked or volunteered for Trump or for organizations that criticize him.

In an attempt to address unwanted attention, Merchan decided to shield the jurors' names from everyone except prosecutors, Trump and their respective legal teams.

Three is precedent for that decision: The six jurors and three alternates in each of Carroll’s federal civil cases against Trump were driven to and from court through an underground garage, and their names were withheld from the public, Carroll, Trump, their attorneys and even the judge. Jurors were chosen within hours for both trials of her claims.

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