Matt Rourke-Pool/Getty Images(PITTSBURGH, Penn.) — Twelve jurors and three alternates have been selected from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to hear testimony at Bill Cosby’s criminal trial next month.
At the end of the day Tuesday, three white women, one black woman, one black man, and seven white men had been chosen to sit on the 12-person jury.
Additionally, six alternates were chosen: a black woman, a black man, and four white men.
Cosby, 79, who faces 10 years in prison if he’s convicted of sexual assault, has been present for both days of proceedings at the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh.
Cosby was charged in 2015 with felony aggravated indecent assault stemming from an alleged 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand. He has pleaded not guilty.
In 2005, Constand went to the police to report that Cosby drugged and sexually molested her at his home the year before, but the district attorney at the time declined to bring charges against the comedian. Constand then filed a civil suit against Cosby, and in a deposition that was, in part, later unsealed by the court, he claimed he gave Constand Benadryl and said that their sexual encounter was consensual.
That suit was settled; the terms, confidential and sealed.
Though the trial will take place in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, beginning June 5, a judge granted a request from Cosby’s legal team to bring in a jury from outside the area. The hope, Cosby’s attorney argued, was to allow for a more racially and socioeconomically diverse group.
The jury makeup is 17 percent black, higher than the 13 percent black population in Allegheny County.
Cosby, who isn’t expected to testify in the trial, has said he believes race may have played a role in the accusations of drugging and/or sexual misconduct made against him by many women.
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