EAGLE, Colorado, 1 September 2004 — Basketball star Kobe Bryant went to court Monday and got his first glimpse of some of the jurors who will hear his trial on rape charges.
Bryant, 26, a Los Angeles Lakers forward, was in court as 82 prospective jurors from Eagle County filed in and out of a closed courtroom under heavy security.
The press was not allowed inside the courtroom. Bryant was accused of raping a 19-year-old local woman at a posh resort near here, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of the renowned Vail ski resort. He was in Colorado for knee surgery and the woman worked at the resort as a concierge.
Bryant’s attorneys and prosecutors worked late into the night on the first full day of jury questioning Monday, hoping to have a jury selected by the end of the week.
Court officials also hoped to have the jury seated before the long Labor Day weekend, and to hear opening arguments on Sept. 7.
“We’re still feeling good about it. That’s one of the reasons we’re going into the night tonight,” court spokeswoman Karen Salaz said of keeping the Friday schedule.
Bryant, who is married, has pleaded innocent to rape and claims the woman consented to having sex. The rape charge brings a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Last week, 300 Eagle County residents filled out an 82-question form designed to learn how they felt about race, sexual assault and infidelity.
The trial has overflowed the small town’s resources. The courthouse is using two of its courtrooms to handle the flow in and out of prospective jurors and has set up a trailer for the press to view the proceedings by closed-circuit television once the trial begins.
Eagle County, from which the potential jurors were drawn, has a population of just 46,000. Potential jurors who filed into the courtroom were young and predominantly white. Eagle County has very few African American residents. The race of jurors is often a factor in US trials, especially when the accused, like Bryant, is African American, and the accuser is white, as in this case. Attorneys will choose 12 jurors and two alternates from the pool of 276 Eagle County residents, 205 of whom filled out questionnaires Friday and 71 from a fresh pool that filled out questionnaires Monday.
They were questioned one-by-one by Bryant’s attorneys and prosecutors on personal questions the judge does not want the public and press to hear. In a version of the questionnaire obtained last week by KCNC, a Denver CBS station, people were asked questions ranging from the serious to sports. If they are National Basketball Association fans, for instance, they were asked what their favorite team is.
