PENNSYLVANIA
USA Today
Maria Puente,Gene Sloan and Jayme Deerwester, USA TODAY
April 25, 2018
NORRISTOWN, Pa. – Jurors at Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial began deliberating Wednesday. Less than 90 minutes later, they sent out a notice they had a question.
After court was reconvened with Judge Steven O’Neill, the lawyers and the jury in the room, the judge said the jurors had asked for the legal definition of consent. But he told the jurors that question could not be answered.
“You have the legal definition of the crime. If that definition does not contain the definition of consent, then the jury will decide what consent means to them,” he said.
The jury’s question might be a sign of a repeat at the retrial of what happened at Cosby’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury last summer after that jury repeatedly asked O’Neill questions about definitions and asked to have portions of testimony read back to them. In the end, despite days of deliberations, that jury was unable to reach a unanimous vote on any count and O’Neill declared a mistrial.
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