Favorite music? Your friends' sex lives? Diddy jury selection may surprise you

USA Today

04-05-2025

Favorite music? Your friends' sex lives? Diddy jury selection may surprise you
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What we know now about Sean 'Diddy' Combs' pre-trial court appearance
Sean "Diddy" Combs was in court for a pre-trial hearing in his federal sex crimes case. What was decided in today's hearing? Here is what we know now.
NEW YORK ― If your significant other cheated on you, could you get past it?
At first blush, the answer might not seem relevant to Sean "Diddy" Combs' upcoming sex-trafficking trial. But it's the surprising type of clue lawyers may look for in picking jurors.
The hip-hop mogul faces charges that he trafficked women for "freak off" sex parties and ran a criminal enterprise that included kidnapping and forced labor. If he's found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
On May 5, prosecutors and Combs' defense will begin the crucial step of selecting jurors.
The process includes potential jurors filling out a written questionnaire and answering verbal questions from the judge, or possibly even from the lawyers.
The judge can eliminate potential jurors who can't attend the full trial for personal reasons or can't commit to being fair and impartial. Each side will then get a chance to eliminate a limited number of remaining potential jurors for their own reasons.
The defense didn't respond to a request for comment on how it's preparing for jury selection, and the prosecution declined to comment. However, USA TODAY talked to jury and trial experts about what it could look like. Here's what they said:
Response to cheating? Testing if jurors can compartmentalize violent Cassie video
One of the most difficult pieces of evidence for Combs may be a video depicting him dragging and kicking his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in a hotel hallway. Judge Arun Subramanian ruled in late April that prosecutors, who say the video took place during a "Freak Off" and is "devastating proof" of sex trafficking, can show it to the jury.
Combs' defense team has argued in court filings that the video was doctored.
Robert Hirschhorn, a lawyer and jury consultant, told USA TODAY that the defense may deal with the video by arguing that Combs was overcharged: he might be guilty of domestic violence, but prosecutors instead charged him with sex trafficking.
Hirschhorn has represented several high-profile clients such as George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of murder and manslaughter in the death of Black teenager Trayvon Martin.
If the judge allows it, Hirschhorn might ask potential jurors if they are the type of people who could work through and compartmentalize their significant other cheating, or whether that would forever affect the relationship. The answer might help gauge if the person could also get past the video.
"Everybody that says, 'compartmentalize,' I don't care what else they say – Unless they say, 'I already think Diddy's guilty,' I'm putting them on the jury every day," Hirschhorn said.
The juror that couldn't get past the cheating?
"They're a dog with a bone," Hirschhorn said. "They can't ever forget about it. That's the juror that will convict."
Race, gender, and sexual assault experiences
Wealthy defendants in particular will sometimes hold mini-trials with focus groups and send out surveys about the case. It's all part of developing profiles of people you want on your jury, and perhaps especially of people you don't want.
"Jury selection is really jury de-selection," Eric Rudich, a social psychologist and litigation strategist at Blueprint Trial Consulting, told USA TODAY. "It's not what you're looking for. It's the people that you feel like they're going to be really bad for you."
Prosecutors may seek to root out people who are wary of the government. Several of the questions that prosecutors want potential jurors to be asked have to do with feelings on law enforcement and experiences with the government.
Experiences with sexual assault or with being accused of assault could also be a major factor. Both sides have proposed questions to potential jurors about those experiences.
Prosecutors "want to try to keep on this jury any woman that has been the victim of some kind of unwanted sexual contact," Hirschhorn said.
Combs' team wants potential jurors to describe the music they like as well as their opinions about the hip-hop and rap music industry. That could be an avenue for figuring out if a potential juror has a bias towards Combs either because of his race or the industry he is in.
"You can't strike jurors based on ethnicity unless they reveal explicit bias," Rudich said. "But questions about people's opinions about hip-hop culture, P. Diddy in general – that's going to probably reveal attitudes and predilections for favoring one side or another."
Feelings on alternative sexual lifestyles?
Combs' lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said in an April hearing that the defense team plans to tell jurors at trial that Combs belonged to an alternative sexual lifestyle as they make their case that he didn't traffic women. "Call it swingers," Agnifilo said.
"Swinging" involves singles or people in committed relationships who engage in consensual, non-monogamous sexual behavior.
The defense team's proposed questionnaire suggests they want to know if jurors are openminded to that kind of lifestyle or would hold it against Combs.
"There may be evidence in this case about people engaging in relationships with multiple sexual partners. Would hearing about that type of evidence affect your ability to serve as a fair and impartial juror in this case?" the questionnaire asks.
To the extent that potential jurors open up about their own experiences or lifestyles within their social circles, that could be one of the best measures of whether they could be receptive to Combs' defense, according to Hirschhorn.
"I'd want to know if anybody's ever experimented with things like swapping, or any of that kind of outside-of-the-norm sexual behavior," Hirschhorn said. "If you know somebody that's a swinger – I'd take that juror."
Hung jury? Finding the one who just won't go along
The prosecution's goal in Combs' criminal trial isn't just to find one juror who concludes Combs is guilty. It needs all 12 jurors to agree in order to win a conviction.
That's not necessarily the strategy for Combs' defense team. While they also need a unanimous verdict to win an acquittal, a divided jury would force the prosecution to decide if it wants to try him again, and the judge might not allow for retrial after retrial after retrial.
That disparity means one kind of juror the defense in particular may want is someone who just doesn't like to go with the crowd.
"The defense wants people who are iconoclastic, who will in some way feel that there is a dominant culture out there that is trying to impose things on the rest of society," Mitchell Epner, a longtime New York litigator and former federal prosecutor, told USA TODAY.
Combs' defense has said it wants potential jurors asked about their decision-making styles in groups, including whether they go with what the majority favors. It has also proposed asking jurors about the political commentators they listen to and whether they belong to any clubs.
"You love an acquittal, obviously, but a hung jury is also a win for your client," Rudich said. "All you need is one juror to find for you."
Aysha Bagchi covers the Justice Department for USA TODAY. She is an attorney, Harvard Law graduate, and Rhodes Scholar. You can follow her on X and Bluesky at @AyshaBagchi.