Jury selection begins in retrial of comedian
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Prosecutors and the defense began picking a jury for Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial Monday amid a powerful #MeToo movement that has pierced the consciousness of the men and women who will sit in judgment of the 80-year-old comedian.
All but one of the 120 potential jurors who answered questions about their background and views told a judge they had heard or seen something about #MeToo, the cultural campaign that’s been exposing sexual misconduct in the entertainment and news industries.
Cosby is charged with drugging and sexually molesting a Temple University women’s basketball administrator at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He says the sexual encounter with Andrea Constand was consensual. His first trial ended in a hung jury.
The former TV star once known as “America’s Dad” for his portrayal of kindly Dr. Cliff Huxtable on his NBC hit “The Cosby Show” was in the courtroom as jury selection got under way.
All but 10 prospective jurors indicated they had knowledge of the case — with more than half saying they had already formed an opinion about Cosby’s guilt or innocence.
Judge Steven O’Neill told the jury pool the trial could last more than a month, adding the panel would be sequestered in a “very nice” hotel. About half said the length of the trial would pose a hardship.
The jury in Cosby’s first trial deadlocked last June, months before #MeToo started toppling famous men in rapid succession, among them movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, “Today” show host Matt Lauer, actor Kevin Spacey and Democratic U.S. Sen. Al Franken.
Veteran lawyers and jury consultants say #MeToo could cut both ways for Cosby, making some potential jurors more hostile and others more likely to think men are being unfairly accused.
“We really have had this explosion of awareness since that last trial and it has changed the entire environment,” said Richard Gabriel, a jury consultant who has worked on over 1,000 trials. “It is a huge challenge for the defense, but it could also provide an avenue and open up the topic.”
The defense is likely to use attitudes toward the movement to weed out jurors.
“There may be a juror who says, ‘I don’t have an opinion about Cosby, but the #MeToo is very important to me,’” said Melissa Gomez, a jury expert and author of the book “Jury Trials Outside In.” “That person is still very dangerous to the defense.”
Last year’s trial was mostly a case of he said, she said. For the retrial, a judge has ruled that jurors can hear from five additional accusers, giving prosecutors a chance to portray Cosby as a serial predator.
The jury questioning revealed some potential witnesses, including Dawn Staley, the South Carolina women’s basketball coach who was Constand’s boss at Temple; Temple board President Patrick O’Connor, who represented Cosby in Constand’s 2005-06 lawsuit against him; and Judge Risa Vetri Ferman, the former district attorney who charged Cosby just before she left office in 2015.
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.