Juror furor
No reason to hide names of Cosby jury members
Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill is showing favoritism to the prosecution in the Bill Cosby case. He’s also showing favoritism to the defense. By keeping secret the names of the jurors in Mr. Cosby’s mistrial, he’s giving the case a VIP status it doesn’t deserve and discrediting a legal system intended to provide equal justice to all.
All criminal cases should be treated equally and follow the same rules. In Pennsylvania, the names of jurors routinely are made public in all but the most unusual of cases, such as those in which jurors face retaliation for their verdicts. That isn’t the situation here. Judge O’Neill said he is concerned that any effort to retry Mr. Cosby would be imperiled by media interviews in which jurors discuss their deliberations and give their opinions about the evidence presented at trial.
A contaminated jury pool is a concern in cases involving celebrities and high-profile crimes. That’s why the legal system provides safeguards. One is holding the trial in another county. Another is impaneling a jury from another county. A third is sequestering the jury. In Mr. Cosby’s case, Judge O’Neill brought in a jury from Allegheny County and sequestered the seven men and five women — held them incommunicado — during the trial.
Following the mistrial, the jurors Saturday traveled back to Pittsburgh with an escort of Montgomery County sheriff’s deputies. They were dropped off on the Port Authority’s East Busway, a highway off limits to private vehicles, so journalists could not approach them. To our disappointment, the Allegheny County sheriff’s department helped to orchestrate this charade. Kevin Kraus, chief deputy, said the office’s involvement was in keeping with Judge O’Neill’s desire to preserve the jurors’ anonymity and that failure to assist could have meant violating a judge’s order.
It was one more way in which Judge O’Neill has given this case a celebrity status while decrying the attention it has received from others.
News organizations, including the Post-Gazette, have gone to court to try to have the jurors’ names released. They presented their argument to Judge O’Neill, who already has said he wants the jurors to remain anonymous. Talk about having the deck stacked against you.
Jurors never have an obligation to speak to anyone about their work after a trial. When reporters approach them for interviews, some agree and others decline. But a fair, transparent justice system requires that the names of jurors be made public. A ruling for juror confidentiality in Mr. Cosby’s case will give leverage to the next judge, prosecutor or defense attorney who wants to keep jurors’ names from the public, and that is how secrecy creeps into the court system.