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*The 12 jury members that will hear the sexual assault case involving Bill Cosby were selected Wednesday, but not without some last minute drama.
The final panel is made up of seven men and five women, consisting of 10 white jurors and two black jurors. Cosby’s lawyers, however, claimed that the prosecution illegally removed one black woman from the panel based on her race.
Cosby’s lawyers accused a member of the prosecution team of making a disparaging remark after the black woman was removed from consideration. Although they didn’t reveal in open court what they claim had been said, Cosby’s legal team sought to use the remark as evidence that prosecutors excluded the woman illegally based on her race.
Prosecutors pushed back, noting two black jurors had been seated, and the judge said he didn’t believe the prosecution had any “discriminatory intent.”
Cosby’s lawyers eventually relented, and once jury selection resumed, three white men and a white woman were quickly added to the panel. That brought the total number picked over three days to 12 — a full jury. Six alternates also have to be picked.
The battle over the black juror’s removal highlighted a vast racial disparity in the suburban Philadelphia jury pool that limited the number of black people available for consideration, according to The Associated Press:
Just 10 of about 240 prospective jurors questioned on the first three days of jury selection were black, or about 4.2 percent. The black population in Montgomery County is about 9.6 percent black, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates.
The county says the names of people called for jury duty are selected randomly from a master list that combines voter registration records and driver’s license records.
Cosby is accused of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He says the encounter with the former Temple University women’s basketball administrator was consensual.
Prosecutors plan to call as many as five additional accusers in a bid to portray Cosby — the former TV star once revered as “America’s Dad” for his family sitcom The Cosby Show — as a serial predator.
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