BELLEFONTE - Senior Judge John M. Cleland's wife drove into the parking lot behind the Centre County Courthouse at 2:50 p.m. Wednesday, a telltale sign jury selection was nearing completion.
As she has throughout her husband's 27-year judicial career, Julie had come to pick him up from work.
Ten minutes later, in a room on the second floor of the courthouse here, prosecutors, defense attorneys and Judge Cleland agreed on the fourth and final alternate juror - the last of 16 people picked for the panel that will weigh child sex abuse charges against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
"We're done," Cleland said as he approved the final selection, a woman in her 60s who recently moved back to Centre County after spending the first 19 years of her life there.
Cleland sped the selection process, originally slated for four days, with his reluctance to disqualify potential jurors simply because of their connections with Penn State or possible witnesses. Those are common in a small community, he said.
The final three jurors and four alternates were selected Wednesday. The same approach, including a multi-pronged system of group questioning and one-on-one interviews, produced nine jurors Tuesday.
Eight of the jurors and two alternates said they had some tie to Penn State, the university 10 miles from here where Sandusky coached football for decades and prosecutors say he sexually assaulted young boys in a campus shower. They include graduates, professors and rabid fans of the university's football team.
Ten of the 16 selected are women, including three alternates. At least four are mothers.
Opening arguments remained scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday after Cleland rejected a last-minute push from Sandusky's attorneys to postpone the trial.
The attorneys, Joseph Amendola and Karl Rominger, argued that attorneys representing one of Sandusky's accusers violated a court-issued gag order by leaking evidence and information to ABC News for a report on the network's newscast Tuesday night.
The network reported that prosecutors planned to show jurors "creepy" love letters they said Sandusky wrote to one of his accusers.
Pool reporters who rotated into the courthouse said Sandusky appeared "happy" as the proceedings wore on. At one point, they said, he turned to the reporters and joked: "What did you do to deserve me? How did you get stuck with this?"
The jurors picked Wednesday were chosen from the second of two pools of 40 jurors who were first asked to respond to a series of questions by raising the placard inscribed with their juror number.
Their answers were indicative of the deep ties in Centre County between its residents and Penn State, by far the largest employer in the region.
Among the connections:
- One man said he personally knew Sandusky.
- Fifteen people said they knew a person named on the prosecution witness list of about two dozen names, which included some of the 10 accusers and former Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary.
- Twelve people said they knew someone on the defense list of about five dozen names, which included seven members of Sandusky's family - among them, his wife, Dottie, and son, Matt - and the former president of his Second Mile charity, Jack Raykovitz.
- Nineteen people said they or a close family member contributed financially or volunteered at Penn State.
- Eight people said they or a close family member volunteered for the Second Mile.
- Eighteen people said they or a close family member were a mandatory reporter, meaning the law required they alert law enforcement about allegations of child abuse.
Despite the connections, Cleland kept 28 potential jurors in the running, dismissing only 12 who said serving on the jury would be a hardship.
Of them, seven were in an adjacent courtroom, waiting to be interviewed, when the final juror was selected. In all, the 16 jurors were culled from fewer than 60 who went through the individual interview process.
Cleland, the folksy former president judge of McKean County, greeted potential jurors Tuesday sans robe and told them to ignore custom and remain sitting whenever he entered or exited the courtroom.
A dismissed juror, James Ellis, called Cleland a "fantastic judge" who had "a really good rapport with all of the jurors."
"He put everyone at ease, which I think was important," Ellis said. "A lot of people seemed nervous when they first came in but by the end of the proceedings yesterday I think everyone was a lot more relaxed."
Ellis, a State College native, waited 16 hours over the last two days in jury selection limbo before Cleland told him and six others that the jury was set and their services would not be needed.
Dismissed juror Alissa Milanese described Cleland as "very nice" and "very fair." The judge, she said, "asks lots of questions."
Milanese, unsure why she was disqualified, said she wanted to serve.
"It's definitely history," Milanese said. "It kind of would have been nice to be a part of history, and my sister-in-law would have been like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe you're in it.' "
In many ways, Cleland said, she already was.
"I know some of you may feel like you wasted your time in the last day and a half, and I understand why that might be," Cleland said as he sent the remainder of the jury pool home. "But let me absolutely assure you, you aren't wasting your time. If you weren't here ready, willing and able to assume the responsibilities of citizenship, the system breaks down."