Cosby Jury Is Set After a Dispute Over Race

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — A jury of seven men and five women will sit at the retrial of Bill Cosby on sexual assault charges, a court here decided Wednesday.

After almost three days of jury selection, prosecutors and lawyers for Cosby agreed on the final member of the panel, a white man, ending a drawn-out process in which the defense team used all but one of its seven strikes. The jury selection was closely watched because Cosby’s previous trial on the same charges ended last summer with a hung jury unable to reach a verdict after six days of deliberation.

Jurors this time were asked whether they had formed opinions about Cosby’s guilt or innocence in the highly publicized case, whether they were already too influenced by the #MeToo movement and allegations of sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry, and whether they or a close family member had been a victim of a sexual assault.

Two of the 12 jurors — a man and a woman — are black; the rest are white. All are residents of Montgomery County, a predominantly white suburban area north of Philadelphia.

Judge Steven T. O’Neill called the jury-selection process “long and arduous.” The major disagreement of the day came in a challenge from Cosby’s lawyers, who claimed that the prosecution had objected to the inclusion of a black woman on the jury because of her race.

Kathleen Bliss, an attorney for Cosby, also accused prosecutors of making a racially offensive comment that was overheard by a member of the defense team. Bliss made a so-called Batson claim — in which a lawyer objects to a challenge brought by the other side, claiming that it was motivated by race, sex or ethnicity — forcing the judge to suspend jury selection to hear arguments.

“She passed every single stage as a fair and impartial juror,” Bliss said. “There’s no other explanation other than her race.”

After the prosecution’s rejection of the woman — known as a “peremptory strike” — Bliss told the court that a prosecutor had been overheard by a nonlawyer member of the defense team making a remark that she said reflected “racial animus.”

The Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, dismissed Bliss’ Batson challenge as “ludicrous,” saying that prosecutors had agreed to both the black jurors to emerge from the jury pool.

“We have had two available African-Americans for jury selection in this case,” Steele said. “We had gladly taken both of those seemingly very responsible people, and they are on our jury panel.”

Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault for an encounter with his accuser, Andrea Constand, at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004. He denies the charges and says the sexual contact was consensual.

Opening arguments are scheduled to begin Monday.