Inside the mind of a potential January 6 juror: 'I just heard guilty in my head'

• Jury selection continued Tuesday for the first trial related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
• One potential juror was angered just sitting in the same room as an accused Capitol rioter.

The potential juror walked into the courtroom shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday. He sat down and crossed his arms over a pale blue T-shirt.

On a standard questionnaire, the unnamed Washington, DC, resident had said his feelings about the Capitol breach would make it difficult for him to serve as an impartial juror in the first trial stemming from the January 6 attack.

But, before excusing him from the courtroom, Judge Dabney Friedrich inquired further.

The man was frank: "As soon as I heard January 6 rioter, I just heard 'guilty' in my head."

That answer came on the second day of jury selection for the trial of Guy Reffitt, an alleged member of the far-right Three Percenters militia who stands accused of bringing a gun to the Capitol on January 6, charging at police, and later threatening his children to keep them from reporting him to law enforcement.

Reffitt's trial is expected to offer a preview of future trials arising from the investigation into the January 6 attack, a wide-ranging inquiry that federal law enforcement officials have described as unprecedented in scale.

From Monday through Tuesday morning, the questioning of potential jurors underscored the anger that has lingered — or even grown — in the months since a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to stop Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden's electoral victory.

In responses to questions fashioned to filter out undue bias, some potential jurors have recounted feeling scared or incensed by the violence of January 6.

By late morning Tuesday, Friedrich had qualified more than 30 residents of Washington, DC, to serve as potential jurors for Reffitt's trial. The qualified jurors all indicated that they could follow the judge's instructions, presume Reffitt innocent, and put any personal feelings aside in considering his case.

But the man in the pale blue shirt — identified Tuesday only by a court-assigned number — was not among them.

"My mother is Jewish and the QAnon people are not very fond of her and her family," the man said, referring to the pro-Trump conspiracy movement.

The man added that, when he learned he was sitting in the same room as an accused Capitol rioter, "I was really upset, quite frankly."

Once the man departed the courtroom, Friedrich addressed federal prosecutors and Reffitt's defense lawyer.

"I assume there's no objection to striking this potential juror for cause," she said.

"No objection, your honor," one of the federal prosecutors replied.

"OK," the judge said. "That juror is stricken."