Bill Cosby escaped spending years in prison.
Once considered “America’s Dad,” Cosby was just on trial for three counts of sexual assault, but the jury deadlocked, which meant he got to walk free.
But one juror had an exclusive interview with ABC News, and explained exactly what happened behind closed doors.
ABC News reports:
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, a juror in the Bill Cosby sexual assault case said that, at one point near the end of grueling deliberations, 10 of the 12 jurors agreed he was guilty on two counts.
At that point, on the last full day of deliberations, the vote on the first of three counts was 10-2 to find Cosby guilty of digitally penetrating accuser Andrea Constand without her consent, the juror said.
The jury also voted 10-2 on the third count, that the alleged assault occurred after Cosby gave Constand drugs or intoxicants without her knowledge, substantially impairing her for the purpose of preventing her resistance, according to the juror.
And on the second count, that she was unconscious or unaware during the incident, the juror said the vote was 11-1 to acquit.
On counts one and three, the two jurors who never voted to convict were ‘not moving, no matter what,’ said the juror, who agreed to speak to ABC News on the condition of anonymity. Other jurors changed their votes over the course of the deliberations.
A second juror told the Associated Press that the panel was almost evenly split in its deliberations.
The juror who spoke to the AP confirmed that at one point the vote was 10-2 to convict Cosby on two of three counts but said three people then changed their minds.
And if you’ve ever seen 12 Angry Men, then you’d know that there is extraordinary pressure behind closed doors to get it right.
But it’s not always taken seriously, though.
In the case of O.J. Simpson standing trial for being accused of murdering Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, the jury deliberated for a few hours and then O.J. was found not guilty.
Famously, jury deliberations lasted only several hours before they’d reached a verdict.
In Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made In America, two jurors actually admitted that they had just wanted to go home – spending 9 months every night alone in a hotel room.
But behind the closed doors of the Cosby trial, the same juror claimed that the “tensions were so high.”
ABC News continued:
Tensions were so high inside the small jury room that a male juror punched a concrete wall, according to a juror who spoke with ABC News.
“I think he broke his pinky knuckle,” the juror said.
“If we kept going, there was definitely going to be a fight.”
“They had five sheriff’s deputies at the door, and they could hear us and they kept coming in because they thought we were already fighting.”
The juror told ABC News that tensions in the deliberation room were exacerbated by its small size; after sheriff’s deputies realized that reporters could see into the room through a window, the 12 had to be moved from a larger conference room.
“People couldn’t even pace” in the smaller room, the juror said. “They were just literally walking in circles where they were standing because they were losing their minds.”
“People would just start crying out of nowhere. We wouldn’t even be talking about [the case], and people would just start crying.”
This isn’t over for Cosby, though. The jury deadlocked and the state will re-prosecute the case as soon as they can get a date set.