Regarding Guber, a judge has tremendous discretion in how he conducts the trial so it's not necessarily surprising that Guber was selected. Guber's previous position would not immediately disqualify him since he no longer works at Sony and the Winona case concerned an unrelated matter. The decision would really turn on whether or not Guber could remain impartial.
Normally, during jury selection, each side has a limited number of peremptory challenges which they can use to disqualify jurors that they feel would be harmful to their case and for other reasons. A process called voir dire takes place during which prospective jurors are examined by the parties and the judge. Often, the two sides squabble over whether someone should be disqualified for "cause" (e.g. - bias, relationship to the case, etc.) so they don't have to waste a peremptory on that prospective juror. The judge generally acts like a referee in the middle of the two parties and is more hesitant to excuse jurors for cause. Ultimately, the judge decides whether to accept an argument being made by one side or the other to excuse a juror for cause. Most judges would prefer to see a party use a peremptory challenge to disqualify a juror instead of excusing a juror for cause since the sooner the two sides use up their peremptories, the sooner the jury can get impaneled and the judge can get on with the case.
During voir dire, Guber was probably questioned about his ability to remain impartial and apparently his answers satisfied the judge. Each side could still have exercised a peremptory challenge to disqualify him (assuming they still had any), but they probably were saving them for more damaging potential jurors.
Jouer
pas francais