Bill Cosby Trial Day 9: What to Expect

But since they have begun their deliberations, the jurors have made six requests for clarifications or to hear testimony or evidence from the trial a second time. Judge O’Neill told the jurors that because he acceded to their first request to listen to a reading of testimony, he felt compelled now to continue to let them review the rest, lest his denials wrongly suggest to them that some evidence was more crucial than others.

Other judges would have told them to use their recollection, he said. “From now on when you ask for testimony, I am compelled to give it to you,” Judge O’Neill said.

Of course this has slowed the process toward a verdict, or at least it seems to have. There is little real sense in the courtroom just what issues are occupying the jurors who have now deliberated roughly 28 hours.

Judge O’Neill dismissed the jury, at their request, around 9 p.m. Wednesday night, sending them back to their hotel where they are sequestered, some 300 miles from their homes in Allegheny County.

He warned them about discussing the case with loved ones or digesting anything about the case they might encounter. “If you are watching television, you know you should turn away and stay away from any news sources,” he said.

With that they filed out, looking in a more jovial mood than they had throughout the day, when they had seemed strained and pale. Bill Cosby left the room, too, and outside disappeared in large car and a flash of camera lights.

His lawyer, Brian J. McMonagle, said as they left, “We’re all exhausted, we just want to go home and get some sleep”

The stromboli takes center stage.

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Judge O’Neill has spoken with concern about taking care of his jurors, especially as the days and nights of deliberation have dragged on. On Wednesday that concern was evident in the timing he set for dinner. The jury came in with a question, but answering the question might take some time, the judge forecast, and in that time, the dinners ordered for the jury, he worried, might get cold.

And the dinner was stromboli, a kind of wrap or turnover (go easy here, we are not the Food Channel) that is typically filled with all kinds of cheese and meats. The judge said the jurors had ordered “hot strombolis” and that is how he thought they should be served, the stromboli being one of the foods in which the Philadelphia area takes a good measure of pride.

The judge said they would be back soon enough to delve further into the evidence. But, he comforted them, “It will be after you eat your hot strombolis.”

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