The rectangular room is unremarkable.
Its lighting is unforgiving, and its furnishings are institutional. But it has one crucial quality: It is large enough to accommodate 12 people around a long table.
It is here that on Wednesday jurors in the first criminal trial of an American president are weighing the fate of Donald J. Trump. And it is here that they will eventually vote on whether to convict him on all, some or none of the 34 felony charges against him that stem from a hush-money scheme.
The walls are painted a hue best described as municipal. A long conference table is surrounded by rolling office chairs, their worn seats and backs are covered with dark-colored fabric, according to people who have seen the room.
Located off a small hallway behind the courtroom, it is steps from the jury box and has a door at each end; there are two bathrooms.
Justice Juan M. Merchan’s jury room is unexceptional in the towering Art Deco granite- and limestone-faced Criminal Courts Building, which was completed in 1941 and houses dozens of courtrooms that line its long, wide marble-paneled hallways. Many have whiteboards and flat-screen monitors on which jurors can view documents and other trial exhibits.
A court officer will stand watch outside the room as the jurors deliberate. They can summon the officer with a buzzer when they want to send a note to the judge conveying questions or requests for testimony to be reread. (Once the officer enters, the jurors’ deliberations must cease.) Copies of notes are provided to the defense and the prosecution, and the judge reads them aloud in open court.
There is no way to determine how long the jurors, whose names have not been made public, will take to either reach a verdict or conclude that they are hopelessly deadlocked. But as they deliberate in their hideaway, the former president and his lawyers, as well as the prosecutors, must remain nearby in the courthouse, with little to do but wait.
