Race, gender, fame all issues as Cosby jury selection starts
One-third of potential jurors admitted they had already formed opinion about verdict
PITTSBURGH— The difficulty of finding 12 impartial jurors to weigh sexual assault charges against Bill Cosby was on full display as jury selection began here on Monday, when most of the potential jurors admitted to being aware of the blaze of publicity surrounding that entertainer in recent years, amid allegations by dozens of women.
When asked by Judge Steven T. O’Neill if they had already formed an opinion about Cosby’s guilt or innocence, 34 of the first 100 potential jurors questioned raised the numbered cards used to identify them. When the judge asked if they had “heard, read or seen anything” about the case, more than 80 of the cards shot up.
In addition, 67 jurors said it would impose a personal hardship on them to serve on the panel, sequestered, for a trial expected to last two weeks in June.
Nearly 17 months after Cosby was charged with the aggravated indecent assault of Andrea Constand, of Toronto, at his home in suburban Philadelphia in 2004, O’Neill and the lawyers in the case began the arduous process of choosing among potential jurors drawn from lists of registered voters and drivers in Allegheny County.
By mid-afternoon, three jurors had been selected: two men and one woman, all of them white. The defence had struck four using its peremptory challenges.
Cosby, 79, arrived at the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh before 8 a.m., wearing a tan jacket, holding a cane and helped by an aide. He walked slowly through a courtyard in the middle of the building and declined to answer reporters’ questions.
The jury pool is being drawn here because of concerns raised by Cosby’s defence team that it would be hard to find open-minded jurors in Montgomery County — near Philadelphia — where Cosby has a home and where the trial is scheduled to start June 5 in Norristown.
Cosby’s lawyers had requested instead a larger and more diverse jury pool drawn from Philadelphia or the Pittsburgh area.
O’Neill stressed the importance of the task before them, and the need to avoid outside views of the case.
“We can’t invite others into this courtroom,” he said.
Among the issues that close observers of the trial are watching: Will the jury be dominated by African Americans, who, Cosby’s lawyers may believe, could still hold affection for him after his decades as a major entertainer? About three-quarters of those in the initial jury pool were white, and none raised their cards when asked if they would be biased against Cosby because he is black.
Will his lawyers seek to select older, married males, or people who share other similar characteristics to Cosby, such as economic or social status?
What will be the demeanour of Cosby, who has sat largely unnoticed during pretrial hearings but recently gave his first public interview in two years as his lawyers said they sought to change the public’s perception of him — the “optics” — as the trial nears? On Monday, he sat quietly in front of the rows of potential jurors, sometimes leaning back in his chair and rubbing his chin, most of the time staring straight ahead.
“It should be somewhat easier to obtain a jury in Pittsburgh,” said Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer and former prosecutor who is not involved in the case.
“The fundamental question is, can you set aside what you have heard or read and decide the case solely on the facts as presented to you in this courtroom?”