A jury of five men and seven women has begun deliberating the fate of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach accused of multiple counts of sexual abuse.
The jurors will be sequestered while they weigh whether Sandusky is guilty. The former coach faces 48 criminal charges stemming from allegations that he abused 10 boys over a 15-year period.
During jury selection, the prosecution and defense clashed over whether potential jurors could be unbiased despite many of their close ties to Penn State.
PHOTOS: Who's who in the Sandusky case
“We're in Centre County. We're in rural Pennsylvania,” Judge John Cleland said, according to media pool reports of the jury selection. Those connections, he said, “can't be avoided.”
Even the Bellefonte, Pa., courthouse is not far from the university.
Half of the jury had studied or worked at Penn State at some point. Three of the jurors have children near the ages of Sandusky’s accusers at the time they said they were abused.Although the names of the jurors were not made public by the court, some detail about them was revealed during the jury selection process:
Juror 1: A mother and Wal-Mart employee who said she doesn't know much about the case.
Juror 2: A 24-year-old man who plans to start school in the fall, studying automotive technology. His father worked for 30 years at Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant.
Juror 3: A middle-aged woman whose physician husband used to work with John McQueary, the father of one of the key witnesses. Former assistant coach Mike McQueary testified last week that in 2001, he saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a shower in the Penn State locker rooms. That encounter set off the string of events that led to the dismissal of football coach Joe Paterno, university president Graham Spanier and pending criminal charges against two administrators who failed to report the incident.
Juror 4: A middle-aged man who works as an engineer in State College, Pa. He is from Maryland and has no ties to Penn State. His wife works at a local library. He stopped reading news about the Sandusky case more than two months before jury selection began.
Juror 5: A high school physics and chemistry teacher. He told defense attorney Joe Amendola he could consider the case fairly despite having two sons, ages 5 and 2. He typically reads sports stories and had only a basic knowledge of the case before the trial began
Juror 6: A woman in her 30s who majored in human development at Penn State and donates to the university. Sandusky spoke at her graduation. She was originally the jury’s first alternate, and stepped onto the panel when the original sixth juror fell ill. She had been present for all prior testimony.
Juror 7: A Penn State rising senior, who showed up to jury selection wearing a Penn State archery T-shirt. He works for the athletic department part-time, in the multi-sports facility. In high school, Juror 7 played for Steve Turchetta, the now-assistant principal who hired Sandusky as a volunteer assistant. Juror 7’s cousin played on the Penn State football team for six years. "Being a student, I hear everything,” he said in court. “The whole outrage. Nothing specific." He also said, “It's a lot of people's faults. Joe did a few things he shouldn't have." But he said he could set his feelings aside for the trial.
Juror 8: A man in his 60s or 70s who worked as a Penn State soil science professor for 37 years. He followed the case, he said, and could put aside his connection to Penn State.
Juror 9: A woman in her 70s, and a retired school bus driver of 17 years. At first, she said her duty was to protect kids, and said, "I can't just see children hurt." But she said she could consider the testimony of all sides.
Juror 10: A middle-aged mother and grandmother, and an administrative assistant at Penn State. She does not know anyone involved in the Sandusky case. She has not had contact with football players and does not read the newspaper.
Juror 11: A married 30-year-old woman with a 6-year-old son who teaches continuing education dance classes at Penn State. Her husband currently works there as a media specialist. The couple have talked about the case. She knows one potential witness and said she has not read recently about the case.
Juror 12: A woman in her late 50s or early 60s who has been a Penn State professor for 24 years. Before jury selection, she read the grand jury report that spelled out the allegations against Sandusky. Her sons are 14 and 16, but she said she could weigh the evidence fairly anyway. She also worked with Graham Spanier, the former Penn State president who was ousted after the allegations were released.
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