Invoice Cosby civil trial jury should begin deliberations from scratch

By the top of the courtroom day Friday, the Los Angeles County jury had come to settlement on whether or not Cosby had sexually assaulted plaintiff Judy Huth on the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 in 1975, and whether or not Huth deserved any damages. In all that they had answered eight of 9 questions on their verdict kind, all however one which requested whether or not Cosby acted in a method that ought to require punitive damages.

Decide Craig Karlan, who had promised a juror when she agreed to serve that she might go away after Friday for a previous dedication, determined over the objections of Cosby’s attorneys to just accept and skim the decision on the questions the jury had answered. However he needed to change course when deputies on the Santa Monica Courthouse appeared and required him to clear the courtroom. The courthouse has a required closure time of 4:30 pm due to no finances for deputies’ additional time.

Karlan refused to require the departing juror, who had been chosen as foreperson, to return on Monday, so jurors must start once more with an alternate in her place.

“I will not return on my phrase,” Karlan mentioned.

It was a weird ending to an odd day of jury deliberations. It started with a notice to the decide about what he known as a “character concern” between two of the jurors that was making their work troublesome.

After calling them to the courtroom and getting them to agree that each juror can be heard in discussions, the jurors resumed, however had a gradual flurry of questions on points with their verdict kind that the judges and attorneys needed to focus on and reply. One query was on the best way to calculate damages.

After the lunch break, Cosby lawyer Jennifer Bonjean moved for a mistrial due to a photograph taken by a member of Cosby’s crew that confirmed a juror standing in shut proximity to a Cosby accuser who had been sitting within the viewers and watching the trial.

Karlan mentioned the picture did not point out any dialog had occurred, and rapidly dismissed the mistrial movement, getting assurances from the juror in query, then your complete jury, that nobody had mentioned the case with them.

The accuser, Los Angeles artist Lily Bernard, who has filed her personal lawsuit in opposition to Cosby in New Jersey, denied talking to any jurors.

“I by no means spoke to any juror, ever,” Bernard advised the decide from her seat within the courtroom. “I might by no means do something to jeopardize this case. I do not even have a look at them.”

Karlan fought to get previous the hurdles and have jurors deliberate so long as attainable, and saved attorneys, reporters and courtroom employees within the courtroom able to bolt as quickly as a verdict was learn, however it was fruitless in the long run.

Jurors had begun deliberating on Thursday morning after a two-week trial.

Cosby, 84, who was free of jail when his Pennsylvania felony conviction was thrown out almost a yr in the past, didn’t attend. He denied any sexual contact with Huth in a clip from a 2015 video deposition proven to jurors. The denial has been repeated all through the trial by his a number of and his legal professional.

In contentious closing arguments, Bonjean urged the jurors to look previous the general public cost in opposition to Cosby and contemplate solely the trial proof, which she mentioned didn’t come near proving Huth’s case.

Huth’s legal professional Nathan Goldberg advised jurors Cosby needed to be held accountable for the hurt he had achieved to his shopper.