I really don't think that's what she meant. Most people know how jury selection works.
I didn't mean they were deliberately sneaking through by lying, though I'm sure that happens sometimes too. I ate at a restaurant once that had a pamphlet on the table (from the NRA or some other gun rights lobby) on how to hang a jury in gun violation cases, but that's an aside.
I've been paneled for a few juries but never selected, so I know the process is pretty rigorous. I'm assuming it varies by state, but here, they start by asking about conflicts. They go through those and dismiss some people based on those criteria. either question the people initially lotteried in the jury box openly or give everyone a questionnaire.
Then they give the prosecuting and defending attorney time to question prospective jurors further and each gets a certain number of "strikes without cause." I've always been picked early in my panel (once I was the first name in the room called) but gotten removed during this process. One attorney or another hasn't wanted me for various reasons. I suspect it's because I'm one of those people who knows my own mind and has a fairly well-formed opinion about everything. Once it was clearly because I taught at the college attended by the defendant.
As the process goes along, though, the ability to dismiss a prospective juror without cause is used up, and attorneys have to negotiate and explain their reasoning more rigorously. Each has their own idea of what an ideal juror will be like too. So I think it's possible for people who are profoundly ignorant, even misogynistic, to get through if the selection process is long and drawn out and they're having trouble getting jurors. This may be true in any case involving a celebrity. Maybe they focused more on finding jurors who had no pre-existing knowledge or opinions about Cosby (which would be hard) or about this case rather than focusing on their issues about rape and women in general.
I think most jurors take their job seriously. I certainly would have (and will if I ever am selected for a jury). But if conviction must be unanimous, and the case concerns a crime that is highly charged emotionally and is likely a consequence of social dynamics and power differentials and so on, like rape (or shootings of black motorists by cops), I think it's unlikely that there won't be at least one juror who votes to acquit based on previous biases.
In cases that don't require a unanimous ruling, this would likely balance out, and a jury would provide a fairer trail than a single judge. But since rape (evidently) requires 12-0 to convict (again, I thought this was only for capital cases, but I guess not), then perpetrators are almost always going to walk, even if they're guilty as ****.
I don't know that judges are the best option, though, as that puts everything in the hand of a single individual, who for all their experience and knowledge, could have biases one way or the other. Don't some countries have panels of experts or of judges serving in place of juries in at least some cases? How does that work? Does that make rapists less likely to walk without biasing things in the other direction (again, no one wants to see innocent people convicted either).
The right to a trial by jury is enshrined in the US Constitution, though, so this can't be changed without Amending it (if the Bill of Rights itself can even be amended). I don't see much chance of that happening.
