Weinstein trial jury chosen after arduous selection
A jury of seven men and five women was selected yesterday for Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial after an arduous, two-week process in which scores of people were dismissed because they had already made up their minds about the disgraced Hollywood mogul.
Opening statements are expected on Wednesday in the case against the 67-year-old who has come to be seen as the archvillain of the #MeToo era.
The once powerful and feared studio boss is charged with raping a woman in a New York City hotel room in 2013, and forcibly performing a sex act on another woman at his apartment in 2006. He has said that any sexual activity was consensual. If convicted, he could get life in prison.
During jury selection, prosecutors accused Weinstein’s lawyers of systematically trying to keep young women off the panel.
For its part, the defence raised an outcry and demanded a mistrial because one of the jurors is the author of an upcoming novel involving young women dealing with predatory older men. The request was denied, but Weinstein’s lawyers continued to claim outside court that the juror had withheld the information on her questionnaire.
The defence said it wasn’t specifically trying to exclude young women, but didn’t want jurors too young to understand the way men and women interacted in the early 1990s.
A stooped Weinstein, shuffling out of the courthouse with the use of a walker because of recent back surgery, had no comment when asked his thoughts on jury selection.
Of the more than 600 people summoned for jury selection, some marked themselves for disqualification by admitting they knew one of Weinstein’s many accusers, had personal experience with sexual abuse, or had read Catch and Kill, a book by Ronan Farrow, one of the first reporters to expose the allegations against Weinstein.
Weinstein’s lawyers have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to move the trial out New York City, arguing that heavy publicity has turned the case into a ‘‘carnival’’ and that the media hub where celebrities and ordinary people often intersect can’t possibly give their client a fair trial. The request is now before a state appeals court.
There was at least one instance of what jury consultants call ‘‘stealth jurors’’ – people eager to serve, especially on a high-profile case, because they hope to make a point or a profit.
Judge James Burke threatened to hold one potential juror in contempt of court for asking his followers on Twitter ‘‘how a person might hypothetically leverage serving on the jury of a highprofile case to promote their new novel’’.