Five jurors picked for Bill Cosby trial so far
PITTSBURGH—The panel that will decide Bill Cosby’s fate in his sex assault trial began to take shape Monday with the selection of five jurors, three white men and two white women.
The search for 12 jurors and six alternates got off to a brisk star, even though a third of the initial jury pool had an opinion about Cosby’s guilt or innocence and an equal number said they or someone close to them had been sexually assaulted. Lawyers on both sides are contemplating a person’s race, sex, age, occupation and interests as they weigh their likely sympathies, experts said.
“You’re looking for what people already believe,” said University of Pittsburgh School of Law professor David Harris. “People don’t take in new information and process it. They filter it into what they already know and think.”
The actor-comedian once known as America’s Dad for his portrayal of Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” is charged with drugging and molesting a Temple University women’s basketball team manager at his home near Philadelphia in 2004. He calls their encounter consensual.
Dozens of other women have made similar accusations against Cosby, and the judge is allowing only one of them to testify at the June 5 trial in suburban Philadelphia. The jury from Pittsburgh will be sequestered nearly 300 miles from home.
Cosby, 79, has said he thinks race “could be” a motivating factor in the accusations lodged against him.
The jurors’ names, ages and occupations were being kept private. The oldest person chosen for the panel was perhaps in his 70s and, like Cosby, uses a cane. The youngest was a young man with a hipster style. He and a middle-aged man selected said they or someone close to them had been sexually assaulted, but they insisted they could judge the case fairly. That’s sometimes harder than it seems, one law professor said.
“Can we trust them (to be fair)? That’s really the question,” said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor. “Sometimes it’s not so easy. It’s one thing to set aside intellectually what you know, but it’s another to set it aside emotionally.”