Potential high cost for jury
Sequestration could total tens of thousands dollars for the county
NORRISTOWN » If history is any indication, the sequestered jury selected for the sexual assault trial of Bill Cosby likely will come with a hefty price tag for Montgomery County.
The last time a jury was sequestered in the county was in 2010 and that was for only three days at a cost of nearly $18,000, according to county officials. The sequestration of Cosby’s jury will be even more costly because Cosby’s trial is expected to last about two weeks and security measures, unlike any ever implemented before at the county courthouse, will be put in
place during the high-profile trial. The county also will incur costs to provide all meals for jurors.
“The jurors will be kept under close supervision of the sheriff’s department or my staff,” county Judge Steven T. O’Neill said during a hearing last week.
The Cosby jurors, who will be brought to Montgomery County from their Pittsburgh area homes on Sunday, will be escorted under heavy guard at all times to and from the Norristown courthouse each day for the trial and to restaurants where they might have their meals.
“Overall, our real focus is security, securing those jurors,” county Sheriff Sean P. Kilkenny said during a recent interview.
Officials would not reveal the identity of the hotel that jurors will call home for the duration of the trial, requiring the round-the-clock supervision by sheriff’s deputies.
“It is going to be an absolute strain on our overtime budget and our manpower resources,” Kilkenny said recently, adding county budget officials are aware of the situation and will monitor those expenses. “The county is well aware that this is going to be costly but that pales in comparison to our duty to protect the residents of this county and everyone involved in this trial.”
The sheriff’s department employs 112 sworn deputies. Kilkenny said it will be “all hands on deck” during the trial.
Overtime costs also could be accrued if the judge decides to hold court on Saturdays during the trial.
“This is going to be a jury decision. They may just choose to rest their minds for two days,” O’Neill said on Thursday, addressing whether jurors will work on the weekend.
O’Neill said he will get input from jurors as to their wishes as the trial moves along.
“This case will take on its own life thereafter,” O’Neill said.
Cosby, 79, faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault in connection with allegations he had inappropriate sexual contact with Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic department employee, at his Cheltenham home after plying her with blue pills and wine sometime between mid-January and mid-February 2004. Cosby maintains his contact with Constand was consensual
The judge moved jury selection to Allegheny County after defense lawyers successfully argued that closer to home prospective jurors have
been subjected to pervasive media coverage making it impossible to select a fair jury in Montgomery County.
Two weeks ago, the judge and the lawyers selected a panel of seven men and five women for the jury, as well as six alternate jurors.
The last time a jury was sequestered in the county was for the June 2010 trial of Julius “Juice” Wise, then 34 and accused of taking part in the Jan. 9, 2009, home invasion that ended in the death of Montgomery Township businessman Robert Chae.
In March 2010, county Judge Thomas P. Rogers approved selecting a jury from another county for Wise’s trial. At the time, Rogers determined that publicity surrounding the trial was “inherently prejudicial” to Wise to the point that the use of a local jury pool would not guarantee Wise a fair trial.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court subsequently named Lackawanna County as the site for jury selection for Wise’s trial.
According to county Court Administrator Michael R. Kehs, the total expenses incurred by Montgomery and Lackawanna counties for the sequestration of the Wise jury amounted to $17,879.69. The total included costs for transporting the jurors to Montgomery County as well as hotel stays and meals, according to Kehs.
“That is specific to the last time we had a sequestered jury,” Kehs said.
The jurors during the Wise trial were sequestered only for three days because Wise unexpectedly decided to plead guilty one day after his trial began. Wise, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree
murder in connection with the residential robbery that ended in the beating death of Chae inside his Gwynmont Drive home.
Wise, who prosecutors alleged helped two others plan the deadly home invasion, later was sentenced to 16 to 32 years in state prison.
County officials have hosted other sequestered juries in the past.
The county was home to a sequestered jury from Dauphin County during the April 1996 trial of Caleb Bradley Fairley, of Upper Merion, who was convicted of firstdegree murder and is serving two life sentences in connection with the September 1995 strangulation deaths of
Lisa Marie Manderach, 29, of Limerick, and her 19-monthold daughter Devon, in Collegeville.
In 1997, a jury from Westmoreland County was selected for the trial of wifekiller Craig Rabinowitz. But moments before that trial began on Oct. 30, Rabinowitz pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison for killing his lawyer wife, Stefanie, inside their Main Line home in April 1997 in order to collect $1.8 million in life insurance and to be free to date an exotic dancer.
Cost figures were unavailable from the county for the 1996 and 1997 sequestered juries.