NORRISTOWN, Pa. _ Jurors in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial requested the judge define reasonable doubt as they sought to break a deliberations deadlock that stretched into its fifth day Friday morning.
"What is reasonable doubt? (The definition)," came the jury request.
The question suggested the panel was bogged down in whether the defense had cast enough legal doubt on the prosecution's case that Cosby assaulted former Temple University basketball staffer Andrea Constand in 2004. Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault.
Judge Steven T. O'Neill then read the definition, which included a doubt that would cause a "reasonable person" to "hesitate before acting on a matter of importance" as well as a doubt that was not "manufactured to avoid the carrying out of an unpleasant duty."
The jury in the Norristown, Pa., courthouse also requested that the judge read aloud portions of deposition testimony from the trial involving Cosby's past purchase of Quaaludes to facilitate sex with women.
"Was it in your mind you were going to use the Quaaludes for young women, plural, that you were going to have sex with?" a questioner had asked.
"Yes," he had said, noting that Quaaludes "happened to be the drug that young people, kids were partying with and I wanted to have it just in case."
It was the first significant request by the jury to review a piece of testimony that did not specifically concern the night of the Constand encounter, suggesting jurors were trying to widen their scope as they sought to break their stalemate.
Separately Friday, O'Neill addressed Cosby on the issue of mistrial, the first time the prospect has been raised in court. As deliberations entered their 41st hour, Cosby lawyer Brian McMonagle has made numerous such requests.
"Your counsel has now made a number of motions for mistrial. Let me make sure you understand" what's at stake, he said to Cosby. He then asked the entertainer a series of questions on whether he had freely given his approval.
"Every time Mr. McMonagle says (mistrial), I am understanding that you are consenting to what he has said," O'Neill said. Cosby answered the yes-or-no questions emphatically from his defendant's chair.
O'Neill had appeared impatient Thursday night after a news conference by Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt exhorting the judge to call a mistrial, and courtroom observers read the unconventional address of the defendant Friday as a response to that. In talking to Cosby, O'Neill alluded to issues being "explain(ed) out in the media" and wanting to "understand the decision for requesting a mistrial is yours and yours alone."
O'Neill on Friday noted the factors that could precipitate a mistrial _ a jury request to halt deliberations followed by his own agreement that the impasse couldn't be broken. O'Neill had sent jurors back to deliberate when they told him they were deadlocked Thursday morning.
"I hope you are well-rested," he told jurors Friday. "Your form of questions does indicate you are deliberating, which is exactly what the court (wants)."
