A potential juror in the Trump trial has a long memory. Fortunately, so does everyone reading this.

The juror mentioned remembering Donald Trump’s infamous 1989 “Central Park Five” ads in The New York Daily News, in which he argued that they needed to bring back the death penalty. Of course, “the Five” were later found to be wrongly convicted, which is why we shouldn’t have the death penalty at all.

** And Trump is the one who wants an “automatic” death penalty if one murders a police officer. You would think that he would’ve learned something about “automatic” things. But then again, we’re talking about Donald Trump.

According to The Independent, on the second day of the juror selection process, a juror said in response to a question about Trump.

“Hoo boy. Going back to Central Park, I knew some of the kids … But I also understood you have a right to purchase an article and put it there.” He later called the former president “comical”. His comments appeared to be in reference to Mr Trump’s ads in the 1980s.

Yes, the 1989 case that prosecutors “agreed to review” in 2002 – when new DNA evidence and a confession proved the five to be innocent. Obviously, that means that for 5-12 years, the teens were wrongly imprisoned.

So it is worth revisiting Trump’s ads because if it were up to Trump, DNA evidence could’ve cleared dead kids.

Despite the fact they would later be found to be innocent, Mr Trump – then a businessman and media personality – bought a full-page statement in The New York Daily News titled: “Bring Back the Death Penalty.”

“I want to hate these murderers and I always will,” he wrote in 1989. “I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them. If the punishment is strong, the attacks on innocent people will stop.”

Trump couldn’t even get that part right.

According to all studies done to date, the death penalty plays no role in deterrence. Even longer sentences don’t make a difference. The most compelling factor in deterring all crime, from murder to petty theft, is simply increasing the chance of getting caught.

That seems appropriate because Trump may be just starting to understand the deterrent effect of getting caught.

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Jason Miciak is the Executive Editor of Political Flare and Editor at Large for Occupy Democrats. He can be reached at [email protected]