Bill Cosby, with spokesman Andrew Wyatt, enters court in Norristown, Pa. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) |
Courtroom A, the stately space where the Bill Cosby
sexual assault trial is unfolding, has been a beehive of activity over
the last week — tearful testimony, fiery arguments, large screens
projecting text of tabloid-worthy details.
Into the evening hours Tuesday, however, the excitement remained in the hallways outside the Norristown, Pa., courtroom.
The jury broke at 9:30 p.m. after 12 hours of deliberations —
and nearly 17 hours overall — with no verdict. The judge sent jurors
back to their hotel and ordered them to reconvene at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Jurors on the sequestered panel are from the Pittsburgh area several
hundred miles away; O’Neill had made clear that returning jurors home
was a priority and has suggested he would encourage them to deliberate
as late in the day as possible.
Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault for an incident at his home in January 2004 with Andrea Constand,
a former Temple University basketball staffer. Constand says she was
drugged during the encounter, which involved digital penetration. Cosby
said in a civil deposition read aloud in the trial that the interaction
was consensual. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison on each
count.
Jurors returned to the court with several questions
throughout the day Tuesday. In one, they asked for a re-read of the
portion of the deposition that Cosby gave more than a decade ago
focusing on his relationship with Constand, since meeting her in 2002
through the night of the alleged incident.
In another,
jurors asked the judge, Steven T. O’Neill, to define “without the
knowledge” of the victim in the sexual-assault count pertaining to the
administering of an intoxicant. The question appeared to address whether
that clause would also include someone who voluntarily took pills
without asking what they were, as Cosby described Constand’s actions. In
another question late in the day, jurors asked to listen again to the
testimony of an officer who was the first to interview Constand when she
reported the incident in 2005.
The officer, from Constand’s native Canada, provided a much
earlier view than other accounts of the night of the alleged assault at
Cosby’s home. According to the officer’s account, Constand characterized
the alleged assault as happening after a restaurant dinner she and
Cosby had with administrators of a local high school, not a private meal
at Cosby’s home. (She later revised that detail.) The inconsistency
suggested the jury was interested in Constand’s credibility.
But
much of the day’s activity was centered in the hall outside the
courtroom, where reporters and observers milled about, trading gossip
and trial theories.
A
group of activists including Cosby accuser Linda Kirkpatrick and lawyer
Gloria Allred, who represents many alleged Cosby victims in civil
suits, were waiting and conferring. In a bag nearby sat protest
placards, ready for use in case of an acquittal. Allred said she hoped a
decision would come soon because later in the week she was set to
testify before Congress on sexual-assault statute of limitation laws.
Cosby,
helped by an aide, walked in and out of the courtroom for the jury
questions, passing through the courthouse halls to enter a private room
where he and some associates have been waiting during breaks. During the
jury questions, he looked engaged as the testimony was re-read and even
seemed to smile hearing a joke he had made about why he had given
Constand a particular phone number.
Outside the
courthouse, the Cosby team released a statement from Marguerite Jackson,
who for the last 30 years has worked as a student advisor at Temple.
The statement said that when Constand was working at the university, she
had told Jackson she had not been sexually assaulted by an anonymous
well-known personality but could plausibly claim she was to win money in
a civil suit.
“Her response was that it had not happened
but she could say it happened and file charges, file a civil suit and
get the money,” Jackson said in the statement.
Jackson’s
account was released by Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt during a lunch
break. The Temple student advisor was sought as a witness by the defense
but was rejected by O’Neill on hearsay grounds after Constand testified
she did not know Jackson. Later in the day, the statement, which was
the defense’s official order of proof to admit Jackson, was entered in
the court record
Wyatt criticized the decision not to allow Jackson to testify.
"We
felt that it was unfair that [Constand] was allowed to testify, and Ms.
Jackson was not,” Wyatt told reporters. Wyatt added that Cosby is
"doing good, his spirits are up, and we believe this jury is highly
intelligent."
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