May 24 (UPI) — A 12-member jury including two African-Americans has been selected for Bill Cosby‘s June 5 criminal trial after three days of selection at Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh.
Both sides agreed on the two final members Wednesday after debating the panel’s racial makeup.
Four white women, six white men, one black woman and one black man comprise the jury. The six alternates include four white men, one black woman and one black man.
The jury’s complexion became an issue late Tuesday. Cosby’s lawyers objected to the prosecution blocking an African-American woman even though she said she could serve objectively.
“We believe this is a systematic exclusion of African-Americans who answered that they could be objective,” said Brian J. McMonagle, one of Cosby’s lawyers.
Prosecutors said the woman had been excluded because she had been accused of falsifying time sheets in a criminal investigation while serving as a Pittsburgh police detective. The charges were dropped but they argued she could be biased against the prosecution.
Judge Steven T. O’Neill of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas ruled in the prosecution’s favor.
The Allegheny County jurors will be bused to Montgomery County, north of Philadelphia, where the criminal charges were filed. They will be sequestered in a hotel for the duration of the trial.
“It’s a terrific jury made up of people from all demographics, all over Allegheny County,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele told reporters on Wednesday.
Cosby, 79, is charged with three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault from a 2004 case involving Andrea Constand, an employee at his alma mater, Temple University.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
More than 50 women have come forward to accuse the former Cosby Show actor of drugging and sexually assaulting them, despite many having out-waited their statute of limitations.
