Bill Cosby released from prison after conviction overturned by Pennsylvania Supreme Court
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Cosby had been denied a fair trial
Aux Features Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby was released from prison today. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction after justices ruled that the comedian had been denied a fair trial.
Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor Jr. declined to prosecute Cosby in 2005, because he believed accuser Andrea Constand’s account of being drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby in 2004 was unreliable and didn’t have enough evidence. That’s why Cosby—with the assurance that he wouldn’t be prosecuted—divulged in a civil case brought by Constand that he had given quaaludes to women he had pursued sexually, as explained by The New York Times. But years later, after Castor’s departure from office, his successor Kevin Steele did not uphold Castor’s deal. When Steele moved forward with criminal charges, Cosby’s testimony in the civil case was used as evidence.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Steele was obligated to stand by Castor’s promise not to charge the comedian. There is no evidence that the promise was ever put in writing.
The court said that the decision not to charge Cosby “opened the door for him to speak freely in a lawsuit against him—and that testimony was key in his conviction years later by another prosecutor.” The court also confirmed Cosby cannot be retried on the same charges.
In a statement shared by CNN, Steele says:
“I want to commend Cosby’s victim Andrea Constand for her bravery in coming forward and remaining steadfast throughout this long ordeal, as well as all of the other women who have shared similar experiences. My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims. Prosecutors in my office will continue to follow the evidence wherever and to whomever it leads. We still believe that no one is above the law—including those who are rich, famous and powerful.”
Cosby was found guilty on three accounts of aggravated indecent assault in 2018. This was after a second trial; the first, in 2017, ended in a mistrial and a hung jury. Though Cosby faced up to 10 years in prison, he served nearly three. Cosby was also denied parole in May after refusing to participate in sex offender programs in prison. At the time of publication, Cosby was set to hold a news conference with his attorneys.
77 Comments
Not long ago, I was reflecting on how it was amazing that they convicted him and he was in prison. Had no idea how tenuous it was.
It’s an outrageous decision. Usually immunity is spelled out in writing. And now what, DAs are going to hand over lists of people NOT to prosecute to their elected successors?
Castor knew of the deal and thought he still could get away with this prosecution. If we should be pissed at anyone it should be him because Cosby getting his sentence overturned and go home is like rubbing heaps of salt in the wounds of his victims who initially thought they finally got him. Now they can’t ever try to get him again.
Not being an asshole, but how do we know the new DA knew about Castor’s deal? That was one of the points of the dissent. It’s not reasonable to conclude that a press release is the same as an immunity agreement. Didn’t the appellate court agree? And why not order a new trial? This is a one-off decision to free one wealthy defendant. And it really stinks.
Of course Cosby’s lawyers were darn sure the DA knew about it. He proceeded anyway. Steve Lehto, a lawyer on YouTube explains it far better than I could.
You are absolutley correct. Such a flimsy process could never work. But I think that’s the point of this decision, as tough as it is to abide- it shouldn’t work like that. The deal should have been in writing from the start.It’s been through the State Supreme Court, so there doesn’t seem to be any question now that the deal actually existed. The fact that the first prosecutor didn’t put it in writing is the really telling thing. He was trying to create a grey area where there shouldn’t be one. His successor then exploited that, and it sure seems pretty hard to believe it wasn’t knowingly.
Putting the deal in writing means oversight by the court, and trying to keep a judge from looking at what you are doing is the only reasonable explanation for the prosecutors’ actions. It’s egregious misconduct and it’s not hard to imagine how badly it could be abused against regular people who may not be as wealthy (not to mention as guilty) as Cosby.Aside all that, Cosby once did a show at a local casino and we went to see him. (don’t get many big names around here, even past their prime). Don’t remember exactly but it was at least a few years before I remember hearing any allegations against him. It was as uncomfortable an “entertainment” experience as I can remember. Cosby was relentlessly bitter, angry and mean-spirited, and not funny at all. At the time I just got angry old man vibes and left it at that, but having seen that in person I was not shocked later to find out he had a dark side.
I hope he steps on a Lego during every trip to the bathroom at night.
In brighter news, Donald Rumsfeld died.
Hey, alright!
Unfortunately, he died after living a long, healthy life surrounded by material comforts. Something most of the hundreds of thousands of people whose deaths he caused never got.
aw…
In bleaker news, that means Dick Cheney won the tontine.
Yeah, but the joke’s on him: the winner of the tontine gets nothing more than a Doobie Brothers box set…
I’d take that.
If you play it in backwards order it creates the illusion that they got better.
Not sure if this was the Donald that had the most urgency though.
are there any donalds that would not make the world better via their deletion? legit have never known one non-douchebag with the name
My guess is the good ones recently changed their name.
Glover
Seriously. Even Donald Duck was a total asshole.
Just cause you’re famous, doesn’t mean you can walk around without pants!
Well, damn, what’s the point then?!
Don Draper chose to become a Donald, yet ended up being even more of a Dick.
Yes, he did. Yet even as totally screwed up as he was, according to the real Don Draper’s wife Dickie Boy was an improvement. Apparently it was a really low bar.
He often played dicks on stage, but was generally thought of as a rather pleasant man in real life…
It feels like God heard about the Cosby conviction being overturned, and said, “Well, let’s give those poor bastards down there something to be happy about.”
So of the 60 accusers that came forward, there were no others that were pursuing parallel criminal cases against him? This somehow was the only one and it was done with evidence the last DA tainted?
As I understand it, those all were past the statute of limitations.
My understanding (someone correct me if I’m mistaken) is that Cosby’s testimony in Andrea Costand’s civil case against him—his admission that he had given her Benadryl to “relax” her—was what opened the door for prosecutors in the criminal trial involving Costand to call on the court to allow the testimony of the countless other accusers, as prosecutors argued that the other accusers’ testimonies would speak to Cosby’s pattern of behavior. So the prosecutors essentially went for Cosby’s testimony in the civil trial (where Cosby had been compelled to testify because he had been promised freedom from prosecution) to leverage the court’s admission of the other women’s testimony in the criminal trial, and that’s what poisoned the case.
Cosby wasn’t offered immunity to testify in the civil case. He later argued that he testified because of the earlier decision by DA Castor not to prosecute, and backed it up by citing a line in a press release Castor issued at the time, but there was no immunity offer for future prosecution in the civil trial. If there had been, the eventual criminal prosecution almost certainly wouldn’t have happened.
We might be talking at cross purposes, but I wasn’t saying that he was offered immunity to testify in the civil trial; I said that he was compelled to testify in the civil trial because he was not going to be prosecuted—because of Castor’s earlier promises—so he could not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. When Castor’s successor Risa Vetri Ferman reopened the case and Ferman’s successor Kevin Steele charged Cosby with criminal sexual assault, the prosecution eventually used Cosby’s testimony in the civil case—his admission that he had drugged Costand—as a way to argue that his other accusers should also be allowed to testify to establish a pattern of behavior.
The prosecution basically shot it’s entire wad in this case, including the testimony of the other accusers who had no cases due to the statutes of limitations expiring. Unless they can bring charges on a more recent event from an accuser who didn’t testify in this case, it over.
I happen to know Bruce Castor and he is a tremendous grandstanding douchebag. Has been forever.
So what you’re saying is you’re Bruce Castor?J/K you know I love you, babe.
🙂
I bet his eyesight mysteriously gets better now.
Regardless of this, he has admitted to drugging women, so this should not be viewed as any kind of vindication. I just feel sorry for his victims today.
Yes, he did admit to doing things that basically have ruined his life and this is not a “not guilty”, it is basically saying when the district attorney promises in public not to charge you forever, another new district attorney cannot change their mind as the office made the promise, not the particular DA. I read the opinion and it unfortunately does seem to make a lot of sense, legally.
Exactly. While this lets him off the hook legally, everyone on planet Earth knows Bill Cosby was a serial date rapist the whole time he was convincing us he was America’s Dad.*urp*
Ya see, Theo, when the DA promises not to prosecute you for one rape charge and then walks back that promise and the State Supreme Court has no choice but to side with you, that’s just a Jello-O pudding pop of incompetence.
It might help if the DA puts that promise in paper instead of word of mouth. It’s government offices at all levels take the concept of records god damn seriously.
It’s fucked up that Cosby is free, but smarter folks than me are pointing out that the court’s decision today really just cleans up what was one big clusterfuck of prosecutorial misconduct that, if allowed to stand, could have had an even more chilling effect vis-à-vis prosecutors reneging on deals with defendants. As occasional AVC contributor Stephen Robinson pointed out earlier today:And as the court’s decision itself points out, “when a prosecutor makes an
unconditional promise of non-prosecution, and when the defendant relies upon
that guarantee to the detriment of his constitutional right not to testify, the
principle of fundamental fairness that undergirds due process of law in our
criminal justice system demands that the promise be enforced.” To protect all of us, this rapist piece of shit walks. He’ll be 84 in a couple of weeks. Hopefully he’ll be joining Rumsfeld soon enough.
That’s what I’m reading. 5th and 8th Amendment rights exist. We don’t toss them out because we don’t like the person. Best I’ve read is “I respectfully invite you to consider the difference between ‘the rich can beat the system’ and “only the rich can reliably vindicate their rights'”
Well said, and as Mark Joseph Stern put it succinctly over at Slate,
“Don’t blame the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Blame prosecutor-turned–Trump lawyer Bruce Castor”:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/bill-cosby-bruce-castor-pennsylvania-supreme-court.html
This. A hundred times this. I can’t stress the importance of records-keeping in every god damn government office at all levels that I’ve worked in. Everything I’ve read says this was a word-of-mouth deal with an announcement. With no record in the actual office or papers signed. If there were papers signed between DA’s Office and Cosby the case never would’ve even been looked at, nevermind the PA court asked if old testimony could be used as evidence.
Then how on earth did this apparent prosecutor misconduct get past the appellate court? Hey, Cy Vance wrote on a napkin that I can do whatever I want in New York County for the rest of my life. So I’m good, right?
Yeah, this part needs to be underlined. The one time outcome (Cosby being freed) sucks, but the much longer lasting judicial impact is a good thing.
It’s worth noting that the grounds for reversal are so narrow that there almost certainly won’t be any longer lasting judicial impact. This isn’t Gideon.I’m somewhat sympathetic to a very broad reading of defendant rights, but it’s important to note that this is basically a ruling tailired to help Cosby alone. It may be the right ruling, but it almost certainly is a dead end.
This is one of those times where we have to understand the overall implications and how they are actually for the greater good. Let’s not forget the Miranda Warnings come from overturning the conviction of another rapist. Like, his he wasn’t wrongly convicted because the cops did something wrong. He was very much guilty of the crime but was released because the cops did something wrong with the outcome being that we now have to be notified of our rights when arrested.
Indeed. The evidence used to charge and ultimately convict him (his statement in the civil case) was tainted and should not have been shown to the jury. He never would have made that incriminating statement had he not been promised it wouldn’t be used against him. His statement is tainted evidence, thus everything in the trial related to that evidence is tainted.Today’s ruling doesn’t mean Cosby is innocent. I’m totally convinced of his guilt. However, it’s better to let let him go than to convict an innocent man based on tainted evidence. That’s the price for having a judicial system that’s actually fair.While Cosby’s conviction was overturned—as of today it never happened in a legal sense—there aren’t many people who think he’s an innocent man. Don’t hold your breath for the Bill Cosby victory tour. He won’t be showing up on the late night talk shows touting his next book.He won’t spend another day in prison, but he is going to spend the rest of his life at home waiting for the phone to ring. None of the universities or organizations that rescinded his honorary degrees and awards will be giving them back anytime soon.
Yep.However much it stinks.
Except it seems pretty clear the PA Supreme Court is being, to be extremely charitable, very expansive in saying there was any kind of agreement. At most there appears to have been a line in a press release that was the basis for Cosby’s appeal, and a later statement by the former DA, Bill Castor, which should not have been binding on the following actions by prosecutors — to be clear, it was the original prosecutor, Castor, who blew things, not the later prosecutors who won the initial case, and one judge went so far as to suggest on the record that Castor was corrupt.
https://defector.com/bill-cosby-didnt-win/I’m honestly torn. In general I think courts should take a broadly expansive view of any kind of dangle by the state. Right now, the police have a well established right to knowingly lie to arrestees and promise that they won’t file charges if someone signs a statement stating their guilt, and then not honor that promise.
That’s crooked, and what happened to Cosby by extension should happen to lower level defendants too, but almost none of them will ever have a press release they can point to. Which is where the pain comes in — it’s fair to argue anything to Cosby’s benefit should be grounds for reversal, but it’s almost certain this stops with him.
No one should look at this as a “not guilty”. Cosby admitted to doing some terrible things. His career and legacy is ruined. However, I read the opinion and unfortunately it does make sense legally. The district attorney did promise, publicly and in writing to “never” prosecute him so he could not plead the fifth in a civil deposition. Then Cosby did testify and could not plead the fifth (because without the fear of criminal charges you have no right to refuse to answer) and a new district attorney went back on that pledge and charged him and used the very deposition he only did because of that promise against him in the criminal trial. The PA Supreme Curt said that was unconstitutional and it does seem like common sense the state should not be allowed to do that, even with people who now seem guilty.
and he never expressed remorse.
Remorse is expressed by people who admit their guilt (if they choose to do so), which BC has not done.
I’ve never understood why people place so much value on monsters showing remorse. If they were capable of remorse they wouldn’t have been able to commit such crimes.
One big gob of gross no matter what way you look at it.
This really, really sucks but the DAs messed up big time in this case. Steele may want to play the card of the white knight who never gives up, he really dropped the ball here.
Netflix: “Get the Cosby Show revival back in gear!”
He’s old. He did time. He didn’t kill anyone. His legacy is ruined.
“he didn’t kill anyone” no, what he did is arguably as bad or worse than murder.
I hate the fact that this means that yet another sexual predator gets off (at least there were 3 years in prison and his reputation destroyed… not that that is enough), but I hate even more that it is the right decision. People are going to be PISSED that he’s getting out – and I can totally see that. What they SHOULD be pissed about is that the former prosecutor made the deal that meant Cosby got to skate on criminal charges if he admitted his drug-rapey behaviour in a non-criminal case…
I expect Bill will be getting the drinks in then
I get that if you’re made a promise of immunity in exchange for testimony by the DA’s office and then they turn around and prosecute you using that evidence, that’s a problem, but surely that has to be in writing. Otherwise the whole thing seems less like an official act and more like a back-room deal.
Agreed. The D.A. coming to the conclusion that the criminal case was “too weak” to prosecute in concert with Cosby’s attorneys’ apparent agreement that Cosby would not assert his right against self-incrimination in a civil action doesn’t seem arm’s length to me. (I’m not at all clear on how one D.A. in one jurisdiction convinced Cosby’s lawyers that whatever Cosby said in a deposition could never come back to bite him in the ass in any other circumstance. Telling a client, “Nah, go ahead and implicate yourself on the record – you’re good” is a bold legal move absent a major CYA letter to Cosby and a really good basis for believing the advice is never going to get you sued.) The idea that Castor was trying to “get at least some justice” for Constand might have some truth, but as you said, it seems less like a legitimate exercise of prosecutorial discretion and more like a questionable quid pro quo.
I feel he should do a comeback tour. I recommend starting in the states with low vaccination rates.
“…and then me and Old Weird Harold and Fat Albert would play Buck-Buck, which was a game we would play!”
FRESH OUT! (of Jell-O pudding pops)
Not guilty on behalf of having confessed in a previous trial…..You know your system is fucked up, America, right?
Not really how it works….his sentence was overturned, he was not declared innocent….The confession only came out because of the implied immunity given by the DA’s office. If the implied immunity had not been given, he would have plead the 5th amendment on the stand and as such there would have been no confession. The prosecutor who brought this trial on the basis of that confession, and the court that allowed the admittance of said confession completely fucked up. The system (in this case) is not fucked up, unfortunately he should be released, but the judge and the prosecutor should be brought up before their state BAR for ignoring a very primary right in the constitution.
The prosecutorial misconduct was off the charts here. The Fifth Amendment is an essential part of our liberties, and prosecutors shouldn’t be able to violate it. It’s a shame that Cosby benefits when he’s a bad person (and is guilty), but the first eight amendments were designed to be safeguards for the good and bad alike.
I hope never experiences a moment of peace in his life. He shouldn’t be able to leave his house without being followed by people throwing tomatoes.
Damn. We have a lot of rules
Rapists should not have rights.