Three men who are accused of plotting to bomb a Kansas mosque and apartment complex that houses Somali refugees have asked a federal judge to ensure that their jury contains a significant number of Trump voters.
The Associated Press, via ABC News, reports that attorneys for defendants argued on Friday that it would be wrong to only pick jurors from a pool of urban residents because they could be prejudiced against the defendants for political reasons.
In fact, the attorneys want to make sure the jury includes residents of rural parts of the state, who were more likely to have voted for President Donald Trump last year.
“This case is uniquely political because much of the anticipated evidence will center around, and was in reaction to, the 2016 Presidential election,” the defense attorneys wrote.
The AP also says that the defense attorneys believe that this trial “will require jurors to weigh whether the alleged conduct constitutes a crime or whether it is constitutionally protected speech and assembly and the right to bear arms.”
The three defendants — Gavin Wright, Patrick Stein and Curtis Allen — were arrested last year after officials uncovered an alleged plot to detonate truck bombs at an apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, on the day after the 2016 presidential election. The three men were each charged with one count of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction at the apartment complex.
The trial of the three men is scheduled to begin in March 2018.
