Bill Cosby’s Sexual Assault Conviction Vacated: Read It For Yourself
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has vacated the sexual assault conviction of Bill Cosby, which will free him from prison.
Bill CosbyThe Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned Bill Cosby’s 2019 sexual assault conviction, ruling that a “non-prosecution agreement” with a previous prosecutor should have prevented him from being charged in the case.
The 83-year-old comedian has served more than two years of a three-to-10 year sentence in a state prison in Montgomery County, after his conviction on charges he drugged and molested Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004.
He was recently denied parole, in part, over his refusal to admit guilt or acknowledge any remorse for crimes he maintains he did not commit.
The case had a complicated history that began in 2005 when Constand first reported the alleged assault to then-Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr., who ultimately declined to file charges in this case.
But Castor’s successors reopened the case and charged Cosby in 2015, just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired and amid a barrage of new accusations from women across the country.
At the time, Castor objected to the new prosecution, saying he’d struck a deal with Cosby and his lawyers not to prosecute him for Constand’s assault if Cosby agreed to sit for a deposition in a civil case she had filed against him.
Excerpts from that deposition were ultimately used against Cosby at trial
He was charged in late 2015, when a prosecutor armed with newly unsealed evidence — Cosby’s damaging deposition from her lawsuit — arrested him days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired.
Who ever picked today as slow news day in the office pool just lost big time. Seems like the correct decision based on all the defense lawyer types I follow.Report
Popehat is defending the decision. A lot of other people and legal commentators think that a press release is not an official agreement not to prosecute.
The issues between procedural justice and factual justice will always be impossible to gap.Report
Having now read, from another source, the concurring and dissenting opinions, I think the concurrence/partial dissent had it right that, even though Cosby and his lawyers reasonably relied on the DA’s assurances, the Court should have taken the opportunity to say that, going forward, this kind of procedure should not be countenanced and that, in the future, lawyers and defendants should not rely on such assurances. I’m also inclined to think that the remedy should have been a new trial without the deposition testimony.Report
More like a distinction between people the media/masses like and those they don’t. I suspect a lot of the same people would be outraged about a different defendant being baited by the state into waiving their 5th amendment rights then using the resulting evidence to convict.Report
Maybe a lot of times yes but procedural justice is also not always what it is cracked up to be. Scalia infamously noted that factual/actual innocence does not matter as long as a criminal defendant received a procedurally correct trial. He was also find with waiving away Brady violations much of the time.Report
I hear you it’s imperfect. But I also think it’s among the most effective tools we have to keep the state honest.Report
I’m going to push back against this. A lot of what people in common law countries regard as necessary for procedural justice like fruit of the poisonous tress doesn’t really exist in civil law countries. In civil law countries, they usually let everything come in to find out what really happened.Report
I don’t think they’re any better at finding out what ‘really happened’ than we are. Certainly never seen any remotely convincing evidence to that effect. And they can run roughshod over people even easier than our system does. Our approach, to this, flawed as it can be, is hands down better than other countries, including in the West.Report
I was wondering when that was going to come back to bite the DA on the a$$?Report
They made a lot of movies in the 1970’s about people getting let off on a technicality.
Maybe we’ll see various state congresses pass some laws with some actual teeth in response to this.Report
Never get your law from the movies.
A court concerned with mere “technicalities” might well have affirmed the conviction on a “technicality” because the previous DA and Cosby didn’t jump through the statutory hoops to get a formal, written immunity order. But it didn’t, so whatever the Court was doing, it wasn’t relying on technicalities.
Since the decision is based on the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its Pennsylvania analogue, there isn’t squat that a legislature can do about it. What laws with “some actual teeth” do you have in mind that might pass muster?Report
What laws with “some actual teeth” do you have in mind that might pass muster?
I dunno. Something called, like, a “Me Too Law” that would result in mostly minorities getting disproportionately harshly sentenced.Report
So that’s a “Don’t pay any attention to what I say; I’m just venting”?Report
Lotta people gonna vent in the coming days, I imagine.
I wonder how many of them will open with “Don’t pay attention to what I say”.
I wonder how many of them will be donors.
I wonder how many of them will be venting to lawmakers.
Are there people who prosecutors listen to? I wonder if anyone will be venting to those people.Report
Castor, who made the big mistake, is no longer DA and has beclowned himself in the service of Trump. Nothing will happen to him because he has nothing to lose. The current DA can blame Castor and the Court, and present as having fought the good fight. The legislature can do nothing, or, if it can, you “dunno” what. I do agree, though, that most of the people who will be venting don’t share your candor and won’t write off what they say before they say it.Report
That’s probably the way to go. “The Trump guy is why Cosby is walking around free now!”
The legislature can do nothing, or, if it can, you “dunno” what.
It can stand up for women.
Maybe extending the statute of limitations or something.
What could go wrong?
Why do we even *HAVE* a statute of limitations anyway?Report
I don’t know about Pennsylvania, but in New York, there is no statute of limitations for 1st Degree rape (I’m referring throughout to adult-on-adult rape because there are complications for other kinds that don’t affect the main point), a 20-year s-o-l (or ten years after the crime is reported, whichever is shorter) for 2d Degree rape, and 10 years for 3d Degree rape. All of those s-o-l’s are much longer than the s-o-l’s for other crimes that aren’t homicides, generally 5 years.
Which, of course, had nothing to do with Cosby’s case. There was no statute of limitations issue. If someone wants to advocate a longer s-o-l, or none, for rape, or some degrees of rape, in PA in general, fine. But the reversal of Cosby’s conviction has nothing to do with it, and isn’t even a good vehicle for opportunistic behavior.Report
and isn’t even a good vehicle for opportunistic behavior.
I disagree. I don’t know that we’ll get some opportunistic behavior out of this, but, if we were, this would be a magnificent vehicle.
Just post the cover of that New York magazine again. Call it “Justice Denied” or something.Report
Ummm…
Report
One of the victims was on NPR talking about it. I feel for her, and the others. But she was complaining about how unfair it was that the court was considering Cosby’s rights. I get that she was venting frustration, but it makes me wonder if she understands why it’s important the court gets it right.
She shouldn’t be upset with the court, she should be upset with a DA who tried to score off a foul.Report
The DA who tried to score off a foul was doing so during one hell of a storm.
He was damned if you don’t, a mere handful of years ago.Report
Fair point.Report
Procedural justice is not a “technicality.”Report
“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, geezer?”Report
How did this even pass the first judge? Why was the second DA allowed to shout “PYSCH!” and use the testimony from the civil suit — testimony only offered because he couldn’t claim the 5th because charges had been officially ruled out — to charge him?
I’m real curious as to the Judge’s reasoning for allowing that to be included, given it’s origins. I could see ruling that a “no prosecution” agreement might not be binding depending on circumstance. But I can’t understand why a Judge would allow evidence only gathered DUE to that agreement in.
What next? Agree to plead to lesser charges, then prosecutors use that as evidence you’re guilty of the charges that were dropped?Report
There appears to be real disagreement on whether an official do not prosecute agreement existed or not.Report
If that was the case, and faced with those facts — I’d have been real, real leery at letting a possible 5th Amendment violation slide past.
Unless there was some OTHER reason, Cobsy decided to waive his 5th amendment rights in a civil suit.
it’s not like he didn’t have the lawyers to let him know.Report
Maybe Castor gave him Quaaludes to impair his judgment.
I tend to agree with you that Cosby’s waiving the 5th is pretty strong circumstantial evidence that he at least thought such an agreement was in place. And Castor, in my understanding, has confirmed from his side as well that he made such an agreement.
(The even-more-cynical-and-paranoid part of me notes that Trump attorney Castor may have his own money woes and Cos is still listed at a $400m net worth, so hopefully people have been keeping an eye on Castor’s bank accounts to ensure that Castor’s memory was not being jogged via financial means).
You’d think Cosby’s lawyers would have gotten that thing in writing, and locked it in a safe-deposit box somewhere. Pretty big deal to leave reliant on verbal agreements, but IANAL.Report
“You’d think Cosby’s lawyers would have gotten that thing in writing, and locked it in a safe-deposit box somewhere. Pretty big deal to leave reliant on verbal agreements, but IANAL”
I get the impression it’s Not Done to walk back even verbal agreements.
To avoid stuff like this, but also to preserve trust — if you made a deal and don’t keep it, people won’t make deals with you. You want Bobby the Little Fish to flip on his boss, he might talk if you make a deal — but he won’t even try to make a deal if you’ve a reputation for weaseling out later.
It was a different DA that decided he could do it, I’m just shocked the Judge wasn’t considerably more careful. it seems like the sort of area you walk carefully through.
Last thing you want is, oh, a higher court tossing your conviction on 5th amendment grounds.Report
The decision gets into this issue. I.e. what are the effects on the legal system if a prosecutor can make a highly publicized ‘deal’ then not honor it.Report
Interesting on the grounds. Though I suppose it spared them the issues around the extensive testimony to uncharged crimes.Report
It may be the correct decision, or not. I’ll leave that to the lawyers.
But it seems like yet another data point supporting the assertion that the legal structures, all of our Constitutional rights that they teach in civics class really only work for a certain class of people.Report
Black guys from Philly?Report
Rich black guys from Philly.Report
I think I just heard a beat from DJ Jazzy Jeff.Report
HehReport
Rich black guys from SF too.Report
You might say that this anecdote confirmed your biases.
That aside, it wasn’t just a matter of having expensive lawyers. The main causal connection between Cosby being rich and having his conviction vacated is that it was his deep pockets that made it worth giving up on prosecution in order to compel him to testify in the civil trial. If he had been broke, there would have been no point.Report
So now that that’s over with, can Al Franken get his senate seat back?Report
That would be lovely, but its a misdirection at best on your part.
Apples vs. ice cubes.Report
If you are wondering what we were saying at the time,
Dennis Sanders and Kristin Devine wrote essays mourning the death of their idea of Bill Cosby.
Andrew posted an article about Cosby’s sentencing and, in comments, he said:
Prescient as hell.Report
Dumb question: Does Cosby have grounds to sue?
Is this going to fall under “Prosecutorial Discretion”?Report
I won’t opine on Pennsylvania tort law, but prosecutorial immunity would bar a federal civil rights action.Report