Jury Selection for Sandusky Case Begins Today

At 8:30 a.m, jury selection begins at Centre County Courthouse and with that, starts the trial of Jerry Sandusky. The prosecution and defense will be able to question members on the “panel” of jurors. The panel is selected from a jury pool of 200 Centre County citizens.

This process will continue until the 12 seats are filled. Considering that all prospective jurors are Centre Co. residents, finding an unbiased jury will not be easy.  Many prospective jurors are expected to have either a Penn State connection or pre-existing thoughts on Sandusky, both of which would certainly eliminate them from consideration of serving on the jury. The prosecution or defense can dismiss any possible juror with proper cause. Additionally, each legal party can also eliminate a prospective juror by exercising one of their “strikes”. It is unclear how many strikes each side will have.

There is no definite way to tell how long jury selection will last. My best guess is two weeks or more as it will be difficult to find 12 Centre County citizens who do not have a jaundiced view towards Jerry Sandusky.